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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.

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
Serious
Knew
Read
Funny
Idea
Business
Farce
Ideas
Deadly
Nothing
Humor

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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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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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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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The point at which beliefs meet may be more significant, more useful to contemplate, than their sources.
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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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There is always time for failure
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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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Hell must be a place where you are only allowed to read what you agree with.
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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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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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All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.
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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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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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To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.
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A war against terrorism is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism.
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Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.
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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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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.
John Mortimer
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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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It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.
John Mortimer