Explore Quotes by John Mortimer

Voting Liberal is a non-thing. Historically, it might be a good idea to have a Conservative government, because change is a good thing. But I don't know that I could bring myself to vote Tory.

Life as a barrister never was terribly real to me, and courtrooms were always a place of fantasy to me. They had nothing to do with discovering the truth, really, of course.

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

It's barrister behaviour to say what you think will appeal to the person you're talking to, whoever it happens to be, whether it's true or not.

My father was the doyen of the divorce barristers. He was an extremely erudite and very famous divorce barrister. So that, when I was a little boy in the nursery, instead of a story like 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs,' I used to get 'The Duchess and the Seven Correspondents.'

The freedom to make a fortune on the stock exchange has been made to sound more alluring than freedom of speech.

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

The hardest thing is to write a play, because you have to hold their attention for two hours, and if you let them go for five minutes, they're gone for good.

There are lots of similarities between being a writer and a lawyer: to tell a story to a jury, hold their attention, make them laugh, make them like you. But what makes being a barrister less satisfying than being a writer is, finally, that it's about what someone else wants you to say.

I knew early on that I was going to be a writer. I think it's something rather like a curse that you're born with.

The worst fault of the working classes is telling their children they're not going to succeed.

I try and treat my children from the age of ten months as if they were totally grown up, which I think is the only way to treat children.

One thing my father said was that if you find yourself in a country where you have to carry papers, you know it has a lousy government.

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.

If you're an actor, you get your eyes put out; you get everything done to you.

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

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

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

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.

There is always time for failure

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.