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.

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.'

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.

John Mortimer Quotes