John Mortimer

“Divorce is a sort of amputation. You survive, but there's less of you.”

“The purpose of the law is not to do justice, but to prevent bloodshed.”

“No brilliance is needed in the law. Nothing but common sense, and relatively clean fingernails.”

“Being a writer is a very peculiar sort of a job: it's always you versus a blank sheet of paper and quite often the blank sheet of paper wins.”

“There's no need to dress like a gentleman if you are one.”

“I suppose that I am a populist. I have a great interest in the lives of ordinary people.”

“A barrister's life is a life of theatricals.”

“I refuse to be an old man... I'm a man who is old, but that's all.”

“The law is a crude machine at best, and only spits out something approaching justice.”

“The great thing about being a barrister is you can be a complete idiot and still make a good living.”

“The only thing that stands between a man and what he wants from life is often merely the will to try it and the faith to believe that it is possible.”

“Comedy is the only thing that makes life tolerable.”

“Cleverness is not wisdom.”

“The wonderful thing about being a writer is that you can get to all the parties and not have to talk to anyone.”

“Far from being a magic nostrum, true love, so-called, is an illness.”