John Mortimer

To escape jury duty in England, wear a bowler hat and carry a copy of the Daily telegraph.

— John Mortimer

No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean finger nails.

— John Mortimer

Murderers have usually killed the one person in the world that was bugging them and they're usually quite peaceful and agreeable.

— John Mortimer

Writing about the indignities of old age: the daunting stairway to the restaurant restroom, the benefits of a wheelchair in airports and…

— John Mortimer

I suppose that writers should, in a way, feel flattered by the censorship laws. They show a primitive fear and dread at…

— John Mortimer

Success is good for the character.

— John Mortimer

“She believed that, in an ideal world, the working class would rule the country, but she had no particular desire to ask…

— John Mortimer

I think being dead isn't any problem. It's the process of dying which is quite off-putting.

— John Mortimer

People will go to endless trouble to divorce one person and then marry someone who is exactly the same, except probably a…

— John Mortimer

Hell must be a place where you are only allowed to read what you agree with.

— John Mortimer

The only rule I have found to have any validity in writing is not to bore yourself.

— John Mortimer

“We are there to make an adversarial system work,”

— John Mortimer

Knowing the law is not much help for an advocate. In fact, it's a bit of a disadvantage, cramps your style.

— John Mortimer

The greatest horrors of our world, from the executions in Iran to the brutalities of the IRA, are committed by people who…

— John Mortimer

Farce is tragedy played at a thousand revolutions per minute.

— John Mortimer

Rumpole, you must move with the times." "If I don't like the way the times are moving, I shall refuse to accompany…

— John Mortimer

The hardest thing is to write a play, because you have to hold their attention for two hours, and if you let…

— John Mortimer

There is no pleasure worth forgoing just for an extra three years in the geriatric ward.

— John Mortimer

The law seems like a sort of maze through which a client must be led to safety, a collection of reefs, rocks,…

— John Mortimer

I suppose true sexual equality will come when a general called Anthea is found having an unwise lunch with a young, unreliable…

— John Mortimer

The shelf life of the modern hardback writer is somewhere between the milk and the yogurt.

— John Mortimer

The greatest horrors of our world are committed by people who are totally sincere.

— John Mortimer

“She who must be obeyed," by Horace Rumpole character”

— John Mortimer

What obsesses a writer starting out on a lifetime's work is the panic-stricken search for a voice of his own.

— John Mortimer

All the flower children were as alike as a congress of accountants and about as interesting.

— John Mortimer