John Mortimer Quotes

46 quotes in 678 categories

• All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting. Accountants
• The shelf life of the modern hardback writer is somewhere between the milk and the yoghurt. Hardback
• Never shake hands with colleagues in court; the customers think you're making deals. Colleagues
• 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… Debt
• 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… All
• The freedom to make a fortune on the stock exchange has been made to sound more alluring than freedom of speech. Alluring
• 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… Age
• 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. Believe
• 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… Aim
• Irritable Judges suffer from a bad case of premature adjudication. Adjudication
• Never believe a rumour until you hear it officially denied. Belief
• Success is good for the character. Character
• I don't think you ever feel a success really because everything could always be done better than you've done it... Better
• A war against terrorism is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism. Conception
• Murderers have usually killed the one person in the world that was bugging them and they're usually quite peaceful and agreeable. Agreeable
• I refuse to spend my life worrying about what I eat. There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the… Diet
• On the three pigs he and his wife own: "We acquired the pigs last year. My wife was born on a pig farm and has… Acquired
• 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… Age
• 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… Brutality
• Rumpole, you must move with the times." "If I don't like the way the times are moving, I shall refuse to accompany them. Accompany

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