A Voyage Round My Father (1982 TV Movie)

Alan Bates: John Mortimer

Photos 

Quotes 

• John Mortimer : You think of how people tell you it's meant to feel: sudden freedom, the end of dependance. You walk into the sun and no-one is taller than you, and you are in no-one else's shadow. But I know how I felt. Lonely.

• John Mortimer : Don't be angry.

  Clifford Mortimer : I'm always angry! When I'm dying...

• John Mortimer : Why did he not blaspheme? Beat his head against the pitch-black walls around him. Why didn't he curse God?

• Reigate : I'll tell you something about your father. He can't see. He's blind, isn't he?

  John Mortimer : [Voice Over as Boy looks out of the car window]  It was a question our family never asked. Naturally, I didn't answer.

• John Mortimer : Did you ever smoke opium?

  Clifford Mortimer : Certainly not! Gives you constipation. Ever see a portrait of that rogue Coleridge? Green around the gills and a stranger to the lavatory!

• John Mortimer : He sent words into the darkness like soldiers to battle.

• John Mortimer : I won!

  Elizabeth : I know. But should you have?

  John Mortimer : I enjoyed it.

  Elizabeth : You get more like him every day.

• Elizabeth : [typing]  It's something Humphrey wants to do. There's a character in it called the Common Man, who keeps saying "Look here, matey, what is the World Health Organisation?"

  John Mortimer : Sounds ghastly.

• John Mortimer : I'm not cut out for this, I'm going into Law, like my Father.

  Elizabeth : Do you always copy your Father? You look like the type to agree with Dad.

  John Mortimer : Well not about everything!

  Elizabeth : Really?

  John Mortimer : He thinks sex is overrated.

• John Mortimer : He had a tremendous capacity for rage.

• John Mortimer : Or just a reluctance to mention anything unpleasant?