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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.

— John Mortimer

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Spirituality

More quotes by John Mortimer

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

If you can't sleep with your own wife wearing a false beard, what can you do?

A "war against terrorism" is an impracticable conception if it means fighting terrorism with terrorism. The feelings on both sides are not that they are taking part in some evil and criminal act but risking their lives heroically for what they consider to be a just cause.

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

Voyage Round My Father (1971)

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.

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Reason is Life's sole arbiter, the magic Laby'rinth's single clue:
Worlds lie above, beyond its ken; what crosses it can ne'er be true.

Richard Francis Burton The Kasîdah of Hâjî Abdû El-Yezdî (1870)

In imitating the exemplary acts of a god or of a mythic hero, or simply by recounting their adventures, the man of an archaic society detaches himself from profane time and magically re-enters the Great Time, the sacred time.

Mircea Eliade Myths, Dreams and Mysteries (1967)

Enlighten the people generally, and tyranny and oppressions of body and mind will vanish like evil spirits at the dawn of day.

Thomas Jefferson

The superior man loves his soul; the inferior man loves his property.

Confucius

Attribution

Quote text and notes from Wikiquote: John Mortimer (page history), available under CC BY-SA 4.0. Source quality and labels are our own summary of what Wikiquote records.