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The point at which beliefs meet may be more significant, more useful to contemplate, than their sources.

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
Point
Contemplating
May
Sources
Beliefs
Useful
Significant
Meet
Source
Belief
Contemplate

More quotes by John Mortimer

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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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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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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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To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.
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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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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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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 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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We may not be the creme de la creme, but we are the creme de la scum.
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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.
John Mortimer
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It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.
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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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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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There is always time for failure
John Mortimer
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The only rule I have found to have any validity in writing is not to bore yourself.
John Mortimer
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Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.
John Mortimer
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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.
John Mortimer
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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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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