John Mortimer
John Mortimer
Sir John Clifford Mortimer, CBE, QC was an English barrister, dramatist, screenwriter, and author...
NationalityEnglish
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth21 April 1923
judging justice suffering
Irritable Judges suffer from a bad case of premature adjudication.
education children thinking
The main aim of education should be to send children out into the world with a reasonably sized anthology in their heads so that, while seated on the lavatory, waiting in doctors' surgeries, on stationary trains or watching interviews with politicians, they may have something interesting to think about.
children believe book
I don't believe in children's books. I think after you've read Kidnapped, Treasure Island, and Huckleberry Finn, you're ready for anything.
running children party
Writing about the indignities of old age: the daunting stairway to the restaurant restroom, the benefits of a wheelchair in airports and its disadvantages at cocktail parties, giving the user what he described as a child's-eye view of the party and a crotch-level view of the guests. Dying is a matter of slapstick and pratfalls. The aging 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.
good-life children class
The worst fault of the working classes is telling their children they're not going to succeed, saying: There is life, but it's not for you.
writing important remember
It is desperately important to remember when enough is enough, when you've finished the scene.
alcohol humans knows
We don't know much about the human conscience, except that it is soluble in alcohol.
mistake knowing choices
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.
running laughing dying
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.
children flower aggravation
All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.
writing yogurt milk
The shelf life of the modern hardback writer is somewhere between the milk and the yoghurt.
father thinking differences
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.
book play people
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.
freedom-of-speech sound economics
The freedom to make a fortune on the stock exchange has been made to sound more alluring than freedom of speech.