Quote

There's more of yourself in a book than a play. that's why we know all about Dickens and not much about Shakespeare. Ben Jonson murdered people Marlowe was a spy Shakespeare just sat in the corner and took notes.

John Mortimer

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John Mortimer
Age: 85 †
Born: 1923
Born: April 21
Died: 2009
Died: January 16
Barrister
Novelist
Poet Lawyer
Screenwriter
Writer
Hampstead Village
Sir John Clifford Mortimer
Sir John Mortimer
John Clifford Mortimer
Book
Spy
Play
Dickens
Much
Shakespeare
People
Sat
Corner
Corners
Notes
Marlowe
Took
Murdered

More quotes by John Mortimer

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To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.
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I had inherited what my father called the art of the advocate, or the irritating habit of looking for the flaw in any argument.
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Check-ups are, in my experience, a grave mistake all they do is allow the quack of your choice to tell you that you have some sort of complaint that you were far happier not knowing about.
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Success is good for the character.
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We may not be the creme de la creme, but we are the creme de la scum.
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I knew nothing about farce until I read Puce a l'Oreille, and had no idea what a deadly serious business it is.
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It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.
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I don't think you ever feel a success really because everything could always be done better than you've done it.
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Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.
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I found criminal clients easy and matrimonial clients hard. Matrimonial clients hate each other so much and use their children to hurt each other in beastly ways. Murderers have usually killed the one person in the world that was bugging them and they're usually quite peaceful and agreeable.
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I suppose true sexual equality will come when a general called Anthea is found having an unwise lunch with a young, unreliable model from Spain.
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My father, to whom I owe so much, never told me the difference between right and wrong now I think that's why I remain so greatly in his debt.
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Never believe a rumour until you hear it officially denied.
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There is always time for failure
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All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.
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People will go to endless trouble to divorce one person and then marry someone who is exactly the same, except probably a bit poorer and a bit nastier. I don't think anybody learns anything.
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Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
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The officers of the branch of the Force (the Obscene Publications Squad) have a discouraging club tie, on which a book is depicted being cut in half by a larger pair of scissors.
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When... I told my father I wanted to be a writer, he had asked me to consider my unfortunate wife, who would have me about the house all day 'wearing a dressing gown, brewing tea and stumped for words'.
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I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth foregoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward.
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