Explore Quotes by Hugh Laurie

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.

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 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.

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 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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.'

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 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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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

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

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

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