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.
Interpretation
The struggle with success often leads to doubt and suspicion about its authenticity.
Hugh Laurie's quote reflects the complexity of achieving success and the psychological ambivalence that can accompany it. While he acknowledges the pursuit and eventual attainment of success, he expresses feelings of distrust and discomfort towards it, suggesting that the joy of accomplishment may be tainted by the fear of losing it or the belief that happiness might bring unintended consequences, thus leading one to generate negativity as a coping mechanism.
In practice
This quote can be shared in a motivational talk to encourage self-reflection on the nature of personal success.
L.A. runs on optimism, enthusiasm and flattery. I think you can go a little bit crazy. I've heard people say there's a limit to the number of years you can stay in this city without going slightly mad. It's just too damn sunny in every dimension - weather-wise, socially and professionally.
Acting is largely about putting on masks, and music is about removing them.
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.
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?
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.
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.
Global interconnectedness has led to the emergence of a new political power, that of consumers and their associations. It is good for people to realize that purchasing is always a moral - and not simply economic - act.
The end doesn't justify the means.
The only boundaries we have are in form. There are no obstacles in thought.
It is only in alert silence that truth can be.
The choicest gift of God to man, the gift of reason; and having endeavoured to force upon himself the belief of a system against which reason revolts, he ungratefully calls it human reason; as if man could give reason to himself.
I'd rather there wasn't an afterlife, really. I'd much rather not be me for thousands of years.
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