John Mortimer Quotes
Quotes to Explore
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I've been writing a lot of poetry recently. It helps me think and work things out.
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'Skins' is about a group of teenagers in Bristol, and it's all about what they get up to and all the different things they do. I think it's a good show because it's come from a very real place, and there's a lot of young people involved in the writing.
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The beauty of 'The Hunger Games' and also 'Game of Thrones,' in fairness, both projects have really complex, three-dimensional, contradictory, strong women... The writing of female characters is extraordinary and equal to the men.
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Writing is like a contact sport, like football. You can get hurt, but you enjoy it.
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When you start writing about the stuff that is the central experience of your own life, you can talk about whatever you want, in whatever way you want.
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I was going to try to get into the creative writing program at Berkeley; it's just that the acting thing worked out.
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My highest point was the first thing I won, a short story competition in a women's magazine in the Eighties. It was the first time I'd had my writing validated, and the first thing I'd ever shown anyone else.
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I can ask for a £25,000 advance, but then you spend a year writing the book, and £25,000 is a loan against sales, and you can easily spend five years earning out. So that's £25,000 for six years.
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I have yet to see a piece of writing, political or non-political, that doesn't have a slant. All writing slants the way a writer leans, and no man is born perpendicular, although many men are born upright.
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Writing is a solitary journey, so I am always excited to go out on book tour and meet readers one-on-one.
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I'm quite adept at writing two or sometimes even three stories at once. So if I get stuck on one story, I switch the next and let my subconscious work on unraveling any plot problems from another story.
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The most difficult and complicated part of the writing process is the beginning.
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I mean, the wonderful thing about writing a book is that you're getting a finished product at the end of the day. You're communicating directly with the reader.
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When I'm writing, I spend all my time in The Grocer on Elgin buying ready-made meals; I think they are the only reason my husband and kids haven't left me.
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We all need to focus on our writing. Because the millions of readers out there don't care about your blog.
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I thought writing about somebody current would be a little closer to what I'm used to doing.
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The writing that feels the best to me, I experience sometimes, is a kind of weirdly deep listening - like, it feels like if you just listen hard enough, the next sentence will tell you what it needs to be.
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The nice thing about writing at home is that it's almost as though I'm doing it already. I get out of bed thinking of my work, and I don't have to go anywhere to do it.
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All my career, all that I've really done has been based on emotion and intuition and gravitating toward what sounds good.
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Somebody said that part of my reaction to British cinema is actually, paradoxically, a patriotic one. I'm so disappointed that we're not better.
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Jacques Derrida is a very important thinker and philosopher who has made serious contributions to both philosophy and literary criticism. Roland Barthes is the one I feel most affinity for, and Michel Foucault, well, his writing influenced my novel, 'Middlesex.'
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It is irresponsible to set an arbitrary cap on how much therapy a Medicare beneficiary can receive. It ignores the health needs of our senior population - especially the oldest and sickest.
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I think a culture can really be elevated through the arts, and it's always a dream come true when I come across roles that enable me to fuse my love of storytelling with my passion for activism and raising social awareness.
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The only rule I have found to have any validity in writing is not to bore yourself.
