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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'.

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
Father
Unfortunate
House
Wearing
Stumped
Wanted
Consider
Brewing
Would
Asked
Gown
Writer
Gowns
Told
Dressings
Wife
Dressing
Words
Tea

More quotes by John Mortimer

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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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Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
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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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We may not be the creme de la creme, but we are the creme de la scum.
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Never believe a rumour until you hear it officially denied.
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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 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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The only rule I have found to have any validity in writing is not to bore yourself.
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No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.
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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 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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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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The point at which beliefs meet may be more significant, more useful to contemplate, than their sources.
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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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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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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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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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Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.
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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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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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