Quotes from Hugh Laurie

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.

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 don't have a single complete show or movie or anything else that I could look at and say, 'Nailed that one.' But endless dissatisfaction is, I suppose, what gets us out of bed in the morning.

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.

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

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...

I started to think of friends I could lean on for some help, but, as always happened when I attempted this kind of social audit, I realised that far too many of them were abroad, dead, married to people who disapproved of me, or weren't really my friends, now that I came to think of it.

Necessity is the mother of self-delusion.

We went through all the usual exchanges dictated by Hollywood and polite society. She tried to scream and bite the palm of my hand, and I told her to be quiet because I wasn't going to hurt her unless she shouted. She shouted and I hurt her. Pretty standard stuff, really.

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.

I said no thank you a dozen times, and fuck off once.

Americans have never really caught on to the idea of eating sheep. I think they think it's cissy.

I once met an RAF pilot who told me of what he called a "bird strike". This, rather unfairly in my view, made it sound as if it was the bird's fault; as if the little feathered chap had deliberately tried to head-butt twenty tons of metal travelling in the opposite direction at just under the speed of sound, out of spite.

Rayner avait sans doute une dizaine d'années de plus que moi. Ce qui ne pose en soi aucun problème. J'entretiens des relations chaleureuses, sans bras cassés, avec quantité de personnes de cet âge.

Plus laid aussi qu'un parking

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.

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

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.

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. Us, or anyone else. Because we're not comparing it with anything. And anyway, we're all dead, or never born, and the whole thing really is a dream. There, you see. That's a funny side.

I had too many things to say, and too small a brain to sort them out with.

Allez-vous au plus vite - crac ! Oh, désolé, laissez-moi vous mettre une attelle, monsieur.

Je suppose que quelqu'un, quelque part, le connaît - l'a baptisé ainsi, l'a gueulé dans l'escalier à l'heure du petit-déj

Chacun en leur temps, briques, couteaux, bouteilles et divers arguments rationnels avaient rebondi sur cette vaste surface en ne laissant que d'infimes empreintes entre des pores profonds et très espacés.

Nous avons échangé des civilités. Mi-scénario hollywodien, mi-bonne société. Elle a commencé à hurler, puis essayé de me mordre la main.