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I Was Too Shy, I Think, To Sing Publicly. It Takes A Particular Kind Of Person. And When I Was Young, I Was Not That Person. In The First Instance, When A Record Company Said To Me, Do You Want To Try And Make Your Record, My First Reaction Was, No, I'm Not Worthy - I Couldn't Possibly, And So On And So Forth.

-Hugh Laurie

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I Was Too Shy,

Hugh Laurie

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I Was Too Shy, I Think, To Sing Publicly. It Takes A Particular Kind Of Person. And When I Was Young, I Was Not That Person. In The First Instance, When A Record Company Said To Me, Do You Want To Try And Make Your Record, My First Reaction Was, No, I'm Not Worthy - I Couldn't Possibly, And So On And So Forth.

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

I Was Too Shy, I Think, To Sing Publicly. It Takes A Particular Kind Of Person. And When I Was Young, I Was Not That Person. In The First Instance, When A Record Company Said To Me, Do You Want To Try And Make Your Record, My First Reaction Was, No, I'm Not Worthy - I Couldn't Possibly, And So On And So Forth.

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

It's A Holy City For Music.

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.

You Hope That Your Teenage Self Would Like And Forgive Your 50-year-old Self.

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.

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

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.

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

Now, My Mom Always Said Two Wrongs Don't Make A Right. But She Never Said Anything About Four Wrongs, And That Always Left Me Confused.

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.

There's An Undeniable Pleasure In Stepping Into An Open-top Sports Car Driven By A Beautiful Woman. It Feels Like You're Climbing Into A Metaphor.

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.

[...] 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Winning A Rowing Race Is Not Like Winning Anything Else. Here's My Theory: You're Facing Backwards, So You're Looking At The People You're Beating--and There's Something Exquisite About That.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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.

I Would Cling To Unhappiness Because It Was A Known, Familiar State. When I Was Happier, It Was Because I Knew I Was On My Way Back To Misery. I've Never Been Convinced That Happiness Is The Object Of The Game. I'm Wary Of Happiness.

I Grew Up With An Impatience With The Anti-scientific. So I'm A Bit Miffed With Our Current Love Affair With All Things Eastern. If I Sneeze On The Set, 40 People Hand Me Echinacea. But I'd No Sooner Take That Than Eat A Pencil. Maybe That's Why I Took Up Boxing. It's My Response To Men In White Pajamas Feeling Each Other's Chi.

Every Day Is The Opportunity For A Better Tomorrow.

Better Tomorrow

Happiness Is The Twinkle In Your Grandmother's Eye As You Reverse The Tractor Off Her Legs.

When School Friends Would Think About Appearing On Stage As The Most Frightening, The Most Awful, Intimidating Experience Ever, I Knew That It Was Something I Could Do.

Celebrity Is Absolutely Preposterous. Entertainment Seems To Be Inflating. It Used To Be The Punctuation To Your Life, A Film Or A Novel Or A Play, A Way Of Celebrating A Good Week Or Month. Now It Feels As If It's All Punctuation.

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 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.

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.

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

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.'

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 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.

I Never Was Someone Who Was At Ease With Happiness.

I'm Not A Religious Man... I Find I Am A Fan Of Science. I Believe In Science. A Humility Before The Facts. I Find That A Moving And Beautiful Thing. And Belief In The Unknown I Find Less Interesting. I Find The Known And The Knowable Interesting Enough.

Believe It Or Not, Perhaps I Don't Show It Much, Or Well, But I Think I Like People.

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 ?'

I Get Anxious About A Lot Of Things, That's The Trouble. I Get Anxious About Everything. I Just Can't Stop Thinking About Things All The Time. And Here's The Really Destructive Part - It's Always Retrospective. I Waste Time Thinking Of What I Should Have Said Or Done.

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.

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.

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 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.

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 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 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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

Just Because It's A Bad Job Doesn't Mean I Need To Do It Badly.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Keep On Being Yourself.

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.

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.

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 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.'

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

I Just Read An 800-page History Of The Scottish Enlightenment And, Honestly, I May As Well Just Start It Again Now, Because I Cannot Remember A Single Thing. I Can Barely Remember Where Scotland Is.

They, All Of Them, Work Incredibly Hard To Make Me Seem Clever And Heroic, Neither Of Which I Am.

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.

I Have Been Instrumental In Banning Bottled Water On The Set. It Hasn't Gone That Well With The Crew... So I Replaced It With Tequila.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

It Gets On Top Of Me And I Get Frustrated.

La Runs On Optimism, Enthusiasm And Flattery. I Think You Can Go A Little Bit Crazy... It's Just Too Damn Sunny In Every Dimension - Weatherwise, Socially And Professionally.

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.

I Know A Lot Of People Think Therapy Is About Sitting Around Staring At Your Own Navel - But It's Staring At Your Own Navel With A Goal. And The Goal Is To One Day To See The World In A Better Way And Treat Your Loved Ones With More Kindness And Have More To Give.

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

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.

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

Finding Happiness

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.

Procrastination

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?

Love Is A Word. A Sound. Its Association With A Particular Feeling Is Arbitrary, Unmeasurable, And Ultimately Meaningless

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.

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.

I Wouldn't Be Able To Act Like Al Pacino Or Play The Piano Like Dr. John, But I Could Probably Act Better Than Dr. John And Play The Piano Better Than Al Pacino.

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