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" 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

Moment

Memory

" 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.' "

" 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. "

" People will survive, and they will find happiness. Happiness only comes when you're not looking for it. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

" 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'm reasonably easygoing. Messing up my lines or making a fool of myself is where you find my fears. Like a lot of English people, I'm prey to embarrassment - the dread that everyone's sort of sniggering at you, that you're going to look like an idiot. I think that sort of halts us all. "

" I feel when acting, I am sometimes overly self-conscious; I think, 'Going, no, don't, put your eyebrow back where it was and, you know, turn to the left.' You know, I'm sort of very consciously adopting this character. But with music, I don't know. I found it was a question of just closing my eyes and just sort of letting things come out. "

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

Hugh Laurie

Believe

People

" Acting is largely about putting on masks, and music is about removing them. "

" The strange thing - and this is one of the advantages of being incredibly shallow and superficial - is that wherever I am, that's sort of home. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" It's easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to make a blues record. "

" 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. "

" Piano was - well, all musical instruments were taught in this very rigid, formal, classical method when I was young. "

" 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. "

" Seems to me that this business, for actors anyway, is not so much about whether or not you do good work. It's about whether or not you get the chance to do good work. "

" Lots of people would say House doesn't have any charm at all. I would disagree, though: I find him immensely charming and endlessly entertaining. He has a sort of grace and a wit about him, and ultimately, I think he is on the side of the angels. "

" The great trap for non-American actors trying to play Americans, I think, is to start thinking of American-ness as a characteristic. It isn't. It is no more a character trait than height. It is just a physical fact, and that's all there is to it. "

" 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? "

" You hope that your teenage self would like and forgive your 50-year-old self. "

" When I was a small boy, 10, 11, 12, probably somewhere around there, when I first heard a blues song on the radio, it was a jolt of electricity. It grabbed me by the throat, it made me shiver. And I knew from that moment that this was for me and this would be with me for the rest of my life. "

Hugh Laurie

Song

Small

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

" I feel like I'm working on an oil rig right now. I'm away from home a lot. "

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

" Unhappiness is an unfinished state; happy people don't need our help. "