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I Admit I Can't Shake The Idea That There Is Virtue In Suffering, That There Is A Sort Of Psychic Economy, Whereby If You Embrace Success, Happiness And Comfort, These Things Have To Be Paid For.

-Hugh Laurie

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I Admit I Can't

Hugh Laurie

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I Admit I Can't Shake The Idea That There Is Virtue In Suffering, That There Is A Sort Of Psychic Economy, Whereby If You Embrace Success, Happiness And Comfort, These Things Have To Be Paid For.

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I Have Resolved To Pick One Novel And Just Read It Over And Over Again For The Rest Of My Life, Because I Cannot Remember Anything Anymore.

I Couldn't Imagine What Fox Thought They Were Doing, Contemplating Such A Jagged Protagonist For A Prime-time Drama. I Only Knew That I Wanted The Role Very Much.

My Dad Gave Me My First Bike At 16. I Soon Fell Off And Was In A Wheelchair For Weeks. I Haven't Fallen Since.

In Books, Day Breaks, And Night Falls. In Life, Night Rises From The Ground. The Day Hangs On For As Long As It Can, Bright And Eager, Absolutely And Positively The Last Guest To Leave The Party, While The Ground Darkens, Oozing Night Around Your Ankles, Swallowing For Ever That Dropped Contact Lens, Making You Miss That Low Catch In The Gully On The Last Ball Of The Last Over.

Clive Dunn, As I Understand It, Retired To The South Of Spain, Where He Worked Extensively In Watercolours. I Don't Own Any Of Clive Dunn's Watercolours. I Loved Him In 'dad's Army,' Loved Him. But Not Enough To Actually Seek Out His Watercolour Work.

To Tell You The Truth, The Older I Get, The Less I Know. I Keep Meeting People, Both Older And Younger, Who Seem To Have Accrued So Much More Knowledge Or Expertise Or Certainty About Who They Are And The Jobs They Do. I Just Marvel At It.

Death And Disaster Are At Our Shoulders Every Second Of Our Lives, Trying To Get At Us. Missing, A Lot Of The Time. A Lot Of Miles On The Motorway Without A Front Wheel Blow-out. A Lot Of Viruses That Slither Through Our Bodies Without Snagging. A Lot Of Pianos That Fall A Minute After We've Passed. Or A Month, It Makes No Difference. So Unless We're Going To Get Down On Our Knees And Give Thanks Every Time Disaster Misses, It Makes No Sense To Moan When It Strikes.

I Feel Like I'm Working On An Oil Rig Right Now. I'm Away From Home A Lot.

Boxing Is Fascinating. It's Good For The Soul To Be Made To Feel Clumsy. I Swank Around During The Week Thinking I'm A Big Cheese, But You Don't Feel Like That When You're In The Ring With A Chap Who Knows What He's Doing. It's Ritual Humiliation. I'm Going To Be Slugged About And Probably Killed, But I Love It And Have To Do Something To Keep Fit.

The Only Good Thing I've Ever Noticed About Money, The Only Positive Aspect Of An Otherwise Pretty Vulgar Commodity, Is That You Can Use It To Buy Things.

Success On A Cosmic Level Completely Eludes Me. I'm Deeply Suspicious Of Things Being Too Good. It's Part Of My Superstition, I Think, To Generate Pain In Order To Give The Illusion Of Gain. I'm Not Saying I Reject Success, But Honestly, I Don't Quite Know How To Deal With It. It's An Old Feeling: As Soon As You Have The Thing You've Been Going After All Your Life, That Reasonable Degree Of Security, You Start Kicking Against It, Doubting It.

Driving A Motorcycle Is Like Flying. All Your Senses Are Alive.

I Think Maybe Even One Of The Reasons I Became An Actor Was Actually To Hide. I Mean, It Sounds Paradoxical Because, Of Course, People Are Standing Up In A Public Place And Encouraging Other People To Look At Them. So That's Not The Conventional Definition Of Hiding.

I Think Pain Is A Very - It's An Extremely Hard Thing To Empathize Moment To Moment. And You Often Don't Remember Your Own Pain, You Know, That Moment That You Broke A Limb Or You Burned Yourself Or, I Think, This Is A Common Thing That Women Talk About With Childbirth, That The Memory Of The Pain Is Hard To Summon Up And Relive, Thankfully.

She Turned Towards Me And Narrowed Her Eyes...narrowed Them Horizontally, Not Vertically.

I Don't Talk Like House, Or Walk Like Him. I Certainly Don't Think Like Him. I Don't Like To Think For More Than 15 Minutes At A Stretch Actually; I Am A Fragile Flower.

I Am A Coffee Fanatic. Once You Go To Proper Coffee, You Can't Go Back. You Cannot Go Back.

I Travel To Work On My Motorcycle, So It's Jeans, Boots And A Brown Aero Leather Jacket That Weighs As Much As I Do. If It Were Black, It Would Seem Like I've Got A Brando Idea Going On, Which I Don't.

Leather Jackets

This Was The Tricky Bit. The Really Tricky Bit, Trickiness Cubed.

I Am Very, Very Aware At All Times. I'm Watching Myself, I'm Listening To Myself, I'm Judging Myself, Critiquing Myself All The Time, And I Will Know When I Do Something And I Will Immediately Say, "can I Do Another One, Because I Didn't Quite Get That Thing," Or That I Wanted To Do Something There And It Didn't Quite Work.

I Was Shown Into A Room. A Red Room. Red Wallpaper, Red Curtains, Red Carpet. They Said It Was A Sitting-room, But I Don’t Know Why They’d Decided To Confine Its Purpose Just To Sitting. Obviously, Sitting Was One Of The Things You Could Do In A Room This Size; But You Could Also Stage Operas, Hold Cycling Races, And Have An Absolutely Cracking Game Of Frisbee, All At The Same Time, Without Having To Move Any Of The Furniture. It Could Rain In A Room This Big.

It Was The Sheer Variety Of The Pain That Stopped Me From Crying Out. It Came From So Many Places, Spoke So Many Languages, Wore So Many Dazzling Varieties Of Ethnic Costume, That For A Full Fifteen Seconds I Could Only Hang My Jaw In Amazement.

It's A Basic Truth Of The Human Condition That Everybody Lies. The Only Variable Is About What.

I'm Finding It Increasingly Difficult To Simply Walk Down The Street. In New York, I Dashed In To Buy A Big Pair Of Sunglasses To Conceal Myself, But The Guy Behind The Counter Shouted 'hey! It's Dr. House.'

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I Hate Menus, I Hate Choosing Food. I Just Want To Be Brought. Bring Me Dinner!

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I Suppose Actors Crave Attention Of Some Kind Or They Have Suffered Some Form Of Arrested Development And Are Still Living In A Sort Of Child's Fantasy Existence At Some Level In Their Psyche.

I Don't Believe In God, But I Have This Idea That If There Were A God, Or Destiny Of Some Kind Looking Down On Us, That If He Saw You Taking Anything For Granted He'd Take It Away.

Having A Vote Once Every Four Years Is Not The Same Thing As Democracy.

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Newton's Third Law Of Conversation, If It Existed, Would Hold That Every Statement Implies An Equal And Opposite Statement. To Say That I'd Turned The Offer Down Raised The Possibility That I Might Not Have Done.

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Perseverance Does Not Equal Worthiness. Next Time You Want To Get My Attention, Wear Something Fun. Low-riding Jeans Are Hot.

It Is The Middle Of December Now, And We Are About To Travel To Switzerland - Where We Plan To Ski A Little, Relax A Little, And Shoot A Dutch Politician A Little.

People Are Falling All Over Themselves To Send You Free Shoes And Free Cufflinks And Colonic Irrigations For Two. Nobody Ever Offers You A Free Acceptance Speech. There Just Seems To Be A Gap In The Market. I Would Love To Be Able To Pull Out A Speech By Dolce & Gabbana.

I Would Just Hear Piano Players And I Would Hear Music, And Just Think - I Don't Just Want To Sit Here And Passively Listen; I Want To Get Inside It.

I Personally Believe That The Ipod Is A Frankly Corrosive Device Because It Encourages You To Surround Yourself With Your Favorites. The Whole Idea Of A Playlist Is To Surround Yourself With Your Favorite Things, And The Interesting Thing Is That When You Do That, They Cease To Be Your Favorites.

It's A Terrible Thing, I Think, In Life To Wait Until You're Ready. I Have This Feeling Now That Actually No One Is Ever Ready To Do Anything. There Is Almost No Such Thing As Ready. There Is Only Now. And You May As Well Do It Now. Generally Speaking, Now Is As Good A Time As Any.

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I Never Went To Drama School, I Don't Have Any Certificates Saying: 'he's A Qualified Actor.' But I Did Think That House Was Something I Didn't Have To Apologise For. It Was Something I Was Really Proud Of And It Was Sort Of ... Whether You Liked It Or Not, It Was Undeniable.

Acting Is Largely About Putting On Masks, And Music Is About Removing Them.

I Rowed For Cambridge. I Was Pretty Good At That.

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I Don't Like The Act Of Talking; It Makes Me Slightly Light-headed.

[...] And As I Walked, I Tried To See The Funny Side. It Wasn't Easy, And I'm Still Not Sure That I Managed It Properly, But It's Just Something I Like To Do When Things Aren't Going Well. Because What Does It Mean, To Say That Things Aren't Going Well? Compared To What? You Can Say: Compared To How Things Were Going A Couple Of Hours Ago, Or A Couple Of Years Ago. But That's Not The Point. If Two Cars Are Speeding Towards A Brick Wall With No Brakes, And One Car Hits The Wall Moments Before The Other, You Can't Spend Those Moments Saying That The Second Car Is Much Better Off Than The First.

Pain Is An Event. It Happens To You, And You Deal With It In Whatever Way You Can.

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One Of The Principal Goals In My Life Has Been To Avoid Embarrassing My Children By Doing The Job I Do. I Hope I've Managed To Do That, And I Hope That, With The Job I'm In Now, They Are, If Not Proud, At Least Unembarrassed By It. I Must Say, My Three Are Most Agreeable Children, Who Do Nothing But Delight Me.

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Screenwriting Is The Most Prized Of All The Cinematic Arts. Actually, It Isn't, But It Should Be.

Girls Are Complicated. The Instruction Manual That Comes With Girls Is 800 Pages, With Chapters 14, 19, 26 And 32 Missing, And It's Badly Translated, Hard To Figure Out.

As A Real Person, He Wouldn't Last A Minute, Would He? But Drama Is About Imperfection. And We've Moved Away From The Aspirational Hero. We Got Tired Of It, It Was Dull. If I Was House's Friend, I Would Hate It. How He So Resolutely Refuses To Be Happy Or Take The Kind-hearted Road. But We Don't Always Like Morally Good People, Do We?

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I Remember Watching Mel Gibson On Some Show Once, And He Was Being Asked About His Belief In The Afterlife. Gibson Said: 'well, I Can't Believe This Is All There Is'. And I Thought: 'wait A Minute. You're Mel Gibson. You Have Millions Of Dollars. You're A Great-looking Chap With Every Conceivable Blessing That Could Be Bestowed Upon A Man. And That's Not Good Enough ?'

Driving A Motorcycle Is Like Flying. All Your Senses Are Alive. Being House Is Like Flying, Too. He's Free Of The Gravity Of What People Think.

We Put This 15-year Old Girl On The Cover Of A Fashion Magazine, And Tell Everyone She Is The Epitome Of Sexual Perfection, But We Jail Anyone Who Touches Her For Another Three Years.

I Have My Moments. Ever Since I Was A Boy, I Never Was Someone Who Was At Ease With Happiness. Too Often I Embrace Introspection And Self-doubt. I Wish I Could Embrace The Good Things.

One Thing House Needs Wilson For Is Vanity. He Needs Someone To Laugh At His Jokes.

People Are More Open About Seeking Help These Days. They Recognise The Fact That The Alternative To Having A Shrink Is That You Bore Your Friends Stupid. So I Figured That I Might As Well Give Someone 100 Bucks An Hour To Hear My Woes. At Least Someone Can Make A Living Out Of Listening To My Tedious Problems.

I Think Classical Music Tuition Is, Well, Was When I Was A Child, Was An Abomination. I Think In Some Ways It Is One Of Life's Great Tragedies For Everybody Who Gives Up An Instrument.

I Admit I Can't Shake The Idea That There Is Virtue In Suffering, That There Is A Sort Of Psychic Economy, Whereby If You Embrace Success, Happiness And Comfort, These Things Have To Be Paid For.

I Never Was Someone Who Was At Ease With Happiness.

I Have A Reverence For Medicine Because I Hero-worshiped My Father [a Former Doctor], And Because I Admire Doctors, I Admire Study, Empiricism And Rational Thought. I Don't Study, Empiricize Or Think Rationally Myself - But I Admire It In Others.

I Do Have A Huge Problem, A Huge Problem. In Fact, Worse Than Watching Is Hearing. I Cannot Stand To Hear My Own Voice. When It's Coming Out Of My Mouth Right Now It Sounds Fantastically Interesting To Me. It's Rich In Light And Shade, It Goes Up And Down. But When I Hear It Either On Tv Or Even On Someone's Answering Machine, I Just Sound Like I've Had Half My Brain Removed.

It's A Holy City For Music.

I Didn't Realize House Would Be The Central Character, More The Bitter Comic Relief Appearing Occasionally. I Relish His Wounded Nature - The Lameness, The Scarred Byronic Hero.

Humility Was Considered A Great Virtue In My Family Household. No Show Of Complacency Or Self-satisfaction Was Ever Tolerated. Patting Yourself On The Back Was Definitely Not Encouraged, And Pleasure Or Pride Would Be Punishable By Death.

People Assume That I'm Very Highly Trained, That I Studied And Did Years And Years Of Shakespeare. I Have No Training Whatsoever And I've Only Done One Shakespeare Play At University. If People Want To Believe That, I'm Happy To Go Along With It.

Riding My Motorcycle Around L.a. Is Like My Own Video Game. But Unlike Many Folks At The Wheel, I Am Occupied With Getting Where I'm Going And Keeping Myself Safe. Most People Are Applying Makeup, Texting, And Checking Out The Beauty In The Next Car.

One Great Benefit Of Not Being On Tv Every Week Is That People Will Be A Lot Less Interested In What I Have In My Supermarket Basket. I Could Even Un-tint My Car Windows - Or At Least Opt For A Lighter Shade.

Russian Vodka Is Ok If You Need To Clean The Oven. For Drinking, It Must Henceforth Be Polish.

I Do Actually Like Los Angeles. Partly Because I Was Told I Wouldn't.

It Gets On Top Of Me And I Get Frustrated.

I Think Good-looking People Seldom Make Good Television. And American Television Studios Almost Concede Before They Start: 'well, It Won't Be Good, But At Least It'll Be Good-looking. We'll Have Nice-looking Girls In Tight Shirts With F.b.i. Badges And Fit-looking Guys With Lots Of Hair Gel Vaulting Over Things.'

People Will Survive, And They Will Find Happiness. Happiness Only Comes When You're Not Looking For It.

Finding Happiness

Humility Was A Cult In My Family. I Only Got It Out Of My Father By Accident When He Was Very Old That He Had Won An Olympic Gold Medal.

Piano Was - Well, All Musical Instruments Were Taught In This Very Rigid, Formal, Classical Method When I Was Young.

I Run Six-to-eight Miles A Day, Plus Weights And Aerobics In The Lunch Hour. I Also Lie A Lot, Which Keeps Me Thin.

I Think That’s The Lesson You Learn In Life. As You Get Older You Realize You’re Never Going To Grow Up And You’re Never Going To Be Ready. And You May, As Well, Do Things Now, Don’t Wait

Driving A Motorcycle Is Like Flying. All Your Senses Are Alive. When I Ride Through Beverly Hills In The Early Morning, And All The Sprinklers Have Turned Off, The Scents That Wash Over Me Are Just Heavenly. Being House Is Like Flying, Too. You're Free Of The Gravity Of What People Think.

There Is Almost No Such Thing As Ready. There Is Only Now.

To Be Able To Pretend To Be Something That I'm Frankly Not Is Very Liberating And Exciting.

To Be A Head Boy, You Have To Be Very Clever, You Have To Be A Scholar, And I Was Never A Scholar In Any Shape Or Form.

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