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A war against terrorism is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism.

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
Impracticable
Conception
Terrorism
Fighting
War
Means
Mean

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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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Hell must be a place where you are only allowed to read what you agree with.
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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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It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.
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Never believe a rumour until you hear it officially denied.
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The only rule I have found to have any validity in writing is not to bore yourself.
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Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
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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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To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.
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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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No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.
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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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The people look forbidding, solemn, marked by that impossible ideal, Communism, which, like Christianity, seemed to demand too much of humanity and, falling into the wrong hands, led too easily to horrible brutality.
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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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I suppose that writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitive fear and dread at the fearful magic of print.
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There is always time for failure
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Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.
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Like childhood, old age is irresponsible, reckless, and foolhardy. Children and old people have everything to gain and nothing much to lose. It's middle-age which is cursed by the desperate need to cling to some finger-hold halfway up the mountain, to conform, not to cause trouble, to behave well.
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Success is good for the character.
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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.
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