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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
Wife
Dressing
Words
Tea
Father
Unfortunate
House
Wearing
Stumped
Wanted
Consider
Brewing
Would
Asked
Gown
Writer
Gowns
Told
Dressings
More quotes by John Mortimer
Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
John Mortimer
I had inherited what my father called the art of the advocate, or the irritating habit of looking for the flaw in any argument.
John Mortimer
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
Marriage is like pleading guilty to an indefinite sentence. Without parole.
John Mortimer
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
It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.
John Mortimer
No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.
John Mortimer
All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.
John Mortimer
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.
John Mortimer
To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.
John Mortimer
I don't think you ever feel a success really because everything could always be done better than you've done it.
John Mortimer
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.
John Mortimer
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
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.
John Mortimer
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.
John Mortimer
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.
John Mortimer
Success is good for the character.
John Mortimer
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.
John Mortimer
A war against terrorism is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism.
John Mortimer
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.
John Mortimer