Hugh Laurie Quotes & Sayings

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. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

Pain is an event. It happens to you, and you deal with it in whatever way you can. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

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? — Hugh Laurie

Of course, they hadn't really been happier at all. But they 'd been days, and they'd had Sarah in them, and that was near enough. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

Well, that obviously wasn't good enough. Not by a long shot. Saying period at the end of something doesn't make it incontrovertible. — Hugh Laurie

He clambered out of the car, eager to show how quickly he could clamber out of cars, and followed at my shoulder as I strode over to the house. — Hugh Laurie

The financing of all TV shows is dictated by finding an audience between 18 and 49. I have now passed beyond 49, so probably, I am no longer a desirable commodity for TV. And I am at peace with that; that's fine. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

Not before the harvest is in, and the mules
are rested — Hugh Laurie

The temperature must have been in the nineties, and there seemed to be far, far too much air in the room. It was bunched and crowded, and in your face and eyes, and it made you think the room was a rush-hour tube train, and a lot of extra air had managed to sneak in just as the doors were closing. — Hugh Laurie

One thing House needs Wilson for is vanity. He needs someone to laugh at his jokes. — Hugh Laurie

Don't go to Casablanca expecting it to be like the film. In fact, if you're not too busy, and your schedule allows it, don't go to Casablanca at all. — Hugh Laurie

I hate menus, I hate choosing food. I just want to be brought. Bring me dinner! — Hugh Laurie

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 — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

a girl in a lemon-coloured shirt sat at a desk, with word processor, potted plant, mug of pencils, furry gonk, and wadges of orange paper. — Hugh Laurie

The first two rooms were in the same state as the corridor. Dirty, and piled with junk. Dead typewriters, telephones, three-legged chairs. I was reflecting on the fact that there is nothing in any of the world's great museums that looks quite as ancient as a ten-year-old photocopier, when I heard a noise. — Hugh Laurie

I tried not to look at Micky much, so he'd know straightaway he wasn't the point at issue. But a quick glance told me he was also in his forties, and as thin as a very thin stick. He wore leather backless gloves and a revolver, and probably some clothes as well, but I wasn't really paying attention to them. — Hugh Laurie

The cross-section of a helicopter blade, according to Sarah, is more or less the same as the wing of an aeroplane. Its shape creates a pressure differential in the air passing over its upper and lower surfaces, producing a consequent lift. It differs from an aeroplane wing, however, in that when a helicopter moves forward, air starts passing over the blade that's coming forward faster than it passes over the blade that's going backwards. This produces unequal lift on the two sides of the helicopter, and the faster it goes, the more unequal the lift becomes. Eventually the 'retreating' blade stops producing any lift at all, and the helicopter flips on to its back and drops out of the sky. This, according to Sarah, was a negative aspect. — Hugh Laurie

I didn't really know the answer to this myself, but saying that wasn't going to get me off the hook. I started talking without any clear idea of what was going to come out.
'Because sex causes more unhappiness than it gives pleasure,' I said. 'Because men and women want different things, and one of them always ends up being disappointed. Because I don't get asked much, and I hate asking. Because I'm not very good at it. Because I'm used to being on my own. Because I can't think of anymore reason.' I paused for breath.
'All right,' said Ronnie. She turned and started walking backwards so she could get a good view of my face. 'Which of those is the real one?'
'B,' I said, after a bit of thought. — Hugh Laurie

This was the tricky bit. The really tricky bit, trickiness cubed. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

I never was someone who was at ease with happiness. — Hugh Laurie

There weren't many good things to be said or felt about my situation. Not many at all. But the rule is that after any engagement, won or lost, you replay it in you mind to see how much you can learn. So that's what I did ... — Hugh Laurie

The first big stars, Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, you know, these were gigantic stars. I even wonder sometimes whether all music actually comes from women, whether the first glimmering of music is a mother soothing a baby. — Hugh Laurie

Carl waited while I knocked, and when the door opened I came within an ace of slipping a couple of pound coins into his gloved hand and asking him to book me a table at L'Epicure. Luckily, he stopped me by saluting violently, then turned on his heel and set off back down the corridor at a hundred and ten paces to the minute. — Hugh Laurie

I have always stuck up for Western medicine. You can chew all the celery you want, but without antibiotics, three quarters of us would not be here. — Hugh Laurie

When the ship goes down, the waves very quickly roll over the top of it, and attention shifts elsewhere. It's just the natural order of things in TV - in life - and is as it should be. — Hugh Laurie

Somewhere a clock ticked. Quite fast. Too fast, it seemed to me, to be counting seconds. But then this was an American building, and maybe Americans had decided that seconds were just too goddamned slow, and how's about a clock that can do a minute in twenty seconds? That way, we get more goddamned hours in a goddamned day than these faggot limeys. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

Directing is the best job going. I don't understand why everybody doesn't want to direct. It's an absolutely fascinating combination of skills required and puzzles set on every level - emotional and practical and technical. It calls up on such a wide variety of skills. I find it completely absorbing. I just love the whole process. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

Believe it or not, perhaps I don't show it much, or well, but I think I like people. — Hugh Laurie

We want different things. Men want to have sex with a woman. Then they want to have sex with another woman. And then another. Then they want to eat cornflakes and sleep for a while, and then they want to have sex with another woman, and another, until they die. Women,' and I thought I'd better pick my words carefully when describing a gender I didn't belong to, 'want a relationship. They may not get it, or they may sleep with a lot of men before they do get it, but ultimately that's what they want. That's the goal. Men do not have goals. Natural ones. So they invent them, and put them at either end of a football pitch. And then they invent football. Or they pick fights, or try and get rich, or start wars, or come up with any number of daft bloody things to make up for the fact that they have no real goals.'
'Bollocks,' said Ronnie.
'That, of course, is the other main difference. — Hugh Laurie

Screenwriting is the most prized of all the cinematic arts. Actually, it isn't, but it should be. — Hugh Laurie

They're very harsh people, the British: hard to impress, very tough on each other, but I rather like that. It's not that the British are more honest - you're just under no illusion with them. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

Normally, words are sent
from the brain towards the mouth, and somewhere along the line you take a moment to check
them, see that they are actually the ones you ordered and that they're nicely wrapped, before
you bundle them on their way towards your palate and out into the fresh air.
But when you're caught up in the flow of things, the checking part of your mind can fall
down on the job. — Hugh Laurie

This was all horribly wrong. This was red wine with fish. This was a man wearing a dinner jacket and brown shoes. This was as wrong as things get. — Hugh Laurie

It's good that you feel bad,' she said, after some thought. Not much thought, obviously, but some. 'If you felt nothing, it would mean there is no love, no passion. And we are nothing without passion. — Hugh Laurie

People choose the paths that grant them the greatest rewards for the least amount of effort. That's the law of nature, and you defied it. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

Perseverance does not equal worthiness. Next time you want to get my attention, wear something fun. Low-riding jeans are hot. — Hugh Laurie

I realise it must be strange for you, being here in England. I realise that we must strike you as a nation of hicks, who only got hot and cold running water the day before you flew in, but even so, I have to tell you that I've heard a lot of this before. — Hugh Laurie

The first item was fighting under the name 'Crostini of Mealed Tarroce, with Benatore Potatoes' and weighed in at an impressive twelve pounds sixty-five. The Ralph Lauren blonde came over and asked me if I needed any help with the menu, and I asked her to explain what potatoes were. She didn't laugh. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

Ideas are 10 a penny. It's the execution that's the hard thing to do. House is standing up against a tide of sentiment and emotionalism over reason that threatens to engulf this world. When you think about it, a rationalist, a man of science and reason, is in a pretty lonely position. — Hugh Laurie

There is almost no such thing as ready. There is only now. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

I think of House as a deeply moral character, though some would no doubt argue with me. He does not judge. Beyond his normal tetchiness, there were no more than a half-dozen moments of actual condemnation from him. He understood lies and also why you lied, and there was an absolution there that is very, very appealing. — Hugh Laurie

Even the greatest poets, I think, cannot quite get to the places that music can get to in the human - I was gonna say mind, but it's actually the entire body. It somehow seems to infuse the entire body. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

I don't think of myself as funny. I think of myself as rather grave, actually. And I'm suspicious of fun. I never quite know what that is or how to deal with it or how to generate it. That's my fault. I know it's a burden on the people I'm with. It's tiresome. — Hugh Laurie

You hope that your teenage self would like and forgive your 50-year-old self. — Hugh Laurie

Necessity is the mother of self-delusion. — Hugh Laurie

Keep on being yourself. — Hugh Laurie

Not surprisingly, they frisked me like they were taking a frisking exam. To get into the Royal College of Frisking. Five times, head to toe, mouth, ears, crotch, soles of shoes. They tore most of my clothes from my body, and left me looking like an opened Christmas present. — Hugh Laurie

the guards at the door let us through with no more than a glance. British security guards, I've noticed, always do this; unless you happen actually to work in the building they're guarding, in which case they'll check everything from the fillings in your teeth to your trouser turn-ups to see if you're the same person who went out to get a sandwich fifteen minutes ago. — Hugh Laurie

I saw a man this morning Who did not wish to die Patrick Shaw-Stewart — Hugh Laurie

Now, where did I leave my time-machine? Oh I know, next Wednesday. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

Look,' I said, 'I'll be honest with you. You're a big chap, and I'm sure you can do more press-ups than I can. And I admire you for it. This world needs people to be able to do press-ups. It's important. — Hugh Laurie

I've been in prison, you see. Only three weeks, and only on remand,but when you've had to play chess twice a day with a monosyllabic West Ham supporter, who has 'HATE' tattooed on one hand, and 'HATE' on the other - using a set missing six pawns, all the rooks and two of the bishops - you find yourself cherishing little things in life. Like not being in prison. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

Thus freedom now so seldom wakes, The only throb she gives, Is when some heart indignant breaks, To show that still she lives. THOMAS MOORE — Hugh Laurie

Having a vote once every four years is not the same thing as democracy. — Hugh Laurie

I think you're a dangerous, corrupt, lying piece of nine-day-old mosquito shit. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

I think my father gave me a great reverence for medical science. He was about as opposite to the personality of House as one could imagine. He was polite and easygoing, and would have gone to great lengths to make his patients feel attended to and heard and sympathized with. — Hugh Laurie

It doesn't rain at all in California. Once a month, a man drives through spraying Evian. — Hugh Laurie

She turned towards me and narrowed her eyes ... narrowed them horizontally, not vertically. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

The sexual mechanisms of the two genders are just not compatible, that's the horrible truth of it. ( ... )
This is a truth we dare not acknowledge these days - because sameness is our religion and heretics are no more welcome now than they ever were - but I'm going to acknowledge it, because I've always felt that humility before the facts is the only thing that keeps a rational man together. Be humble in the face of facts, and proud in the face of opinions, as George Bernard Shaw once said.
He didn't, actually. I just wanted to put some authority behind this observation of mine, because I know you're not going to like it. — Hugh Laurie

I feel like a hostage to fortune. Not that I am complaining. I wanted to play the role. But in truth I didn't think the show would be such a success. OK, I thought it would fail. Not because it was bad. I was confident it was good, but plenty of good things just sort of wither on the vine. — Hugh Laurie

Russian vodka is OK if you need to clean the oven. For drinking, it must henceforth be Polish. — Hugh Laurie

To be able to pretend to be something that I'm frankly not is very liberating and exciting. — Hugh Laurie

I thought it might be good for morale to look my bank manager in the eye for the first time in ten years, even if the money in my account wasn't mine. I was shown into a waiting-room outside the manager's office, and given a plastic cup of plastic coffee which was far too hot to drink until, in the space of a hundredth of a second, it suddenly became far too cold. I was trying to get rid of it behind a rubber plant when a nine-year-old boy with ginger hair stuck his head out of the door, beckoned me in, and announced himself as Graham Halkerston, Branch Manager. — Hugh Laurie

He flapped his mouth some more, and then shook himself awake, came to a decision, and starting sneaking huge, theatrical looks around the restaurant, as a way of telling all the other lunchers that I Am Now Going To Give This Man An Important Piece of Paper. — Hugh Laurie

I do actually like Los Angeles. Partly because I was told I wouldn't. — Hugh Laurie

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.' — Hugh Laurie

I never thought I'd end up living in Los Angeles while my children grew up in Britain, but here I am, and we are all making the best of it. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

I really do believe the camera steals the soul. But that may be because I'm worried about my soul. I don't have much of a soul to begin with; I can't afford to lose much. — Hugh Laurie

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. — Hugh Laurie

I was working on the principle, you see, that the more obvious you are, the less obvious you are. — Hugh Laurie

Love is a word. A sound. Its association with a particular feeling is arbitrary, unmeasurable, and ultimately meaningless — Hugh Laurie