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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
Means
Mean
Impracticable
Conception
Terrorism
Fighting
War

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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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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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To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.
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Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.
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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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What obsesses a writer starting out on a lifetime's work is the panic-stricken search for a voice of his own.
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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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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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Hell must be a place where you are only allowed to read what you agree with.
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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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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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No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.
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Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The ageing process is not gradual or gentle. It rushes up, pushes you over and runs off laughing. No one should grow old who isn't ready to appear ridiculous.
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The point at which beliefs meet may be more significant, more useful to contemplate, than their sources.
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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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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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