John Mortimer

Also known as Sir John Clifford Mortimer, Sir John Mortimer, John Clifford Mortimer

British barrister, dramatist, screenwriter and author (1923-2009)

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“No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.”
“Do we want blanks, asterisks and exclamation marks which people can fill in with their own imaginations, or are we prepared and strong enough to tolerate, even if we do not approve, the strong Anglo-Saxon, realistic and vivid language?”
“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.”
“The shelf life of the modern hardback writer is somewhere between the milk and the yoghurt.”
“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.”
“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.”