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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.

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
Clubs
Branch
Cutting
Pair
Depicted
Half
Officers
Publications
Force
Pairs
Scissors
Book
Club
Squad
Branches
Obscene
Ties
Discouraging
Larger
Publication

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Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
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A war against terrorism is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism.
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Success is good for the character.
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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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We may not be the creme de la creme, but we are the creme de la scum.
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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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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 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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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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Hell must be a place where you are only allowed to read what you agree with.
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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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Never believe a rumour until you hear it officially denied.
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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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It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.
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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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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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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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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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No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.
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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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