Hugh Laurie
English actor, comedian, writer and musician.
I don't take off my helmet a lot of the time - that's one of the really good things about riding a bike. I can go all over the place and no one knows who I am.
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.
Dawn was definitely pulling into the station by now, and the snow had begun to throb with an electric, new-fallen whiteness. It climbed the inside of my trousers, and clung, squeakily, to the soles of my boots, and the bit just in front seemed to say ‘don’t walk on me, please don’t walk . . . oh.’
I would cling to unhappiness because it was a known, familiar state. When I was happier, it was because I knew I was on my way back to misery. I've never been convinced that happiness is the object of the game. I'm wary of happiness.
I was definitely getting the hang of this skating thing. I'd started to copy a fancy cross-over turn from a German girl in front of me, and it was working pretty well. I was just about keeping up with her too, which was pleasing. She must have been about six.
It's as if you're playing left-handed. Or like everyone else is playing with a tennis racket and you have a salmon.(On performing with an American accent)
The thing you have to realise about Hugh is that he was born prematurely disillusioned. -- Emma Thompson
He's the real thing. Gifted, phenomenally intelligent, and wise. -- Stephen Fry
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.
People talk about nightfall, or night falling, or dusk falling, and it's never seemed right to me. Perhaps they once meant befalling. As in night befalls. As in night happens. Perhaps they, whoever they were, thought of a falling sun. That might be it, except that that ought to give us dayfall. Day fell on Rupert the Bear. And we know, if we've ever read a book, that day doesn't fall or rise. It breaks. In books, day breaks, and night falls.
In life, night rises from the ground. The day hangs on for as long as it can, bright and eager, absolutely and positively the last guest to leave the party, while the ground darkens, oozing night around your ankles, swallowing for ever that dropped contact lens, making you miss that low catch in the gully on the last ball of the last over.
I've always thought of Hugh as a panda, probably because he's not naturally aggressive. Either a panda or an Opel Kadett. -- Stephen Fry
I found a cab eventually, and told the driver in fluent English that I wanted Wenceslas Square. This request, I now know, is phonically identical to the Czech phrase for ‘I am an air-brained tourist, please take everything I have’.
They said it was a sitting-room, but I don’t know why they’d decided to confine its purpose just to sitting. Obviously, sitting was one of the things you could do in a room this size; but you could also stage operas, hold cycling races, and have an absolutely cracking game of frisbee, all at the same time, without having to move any of the furniture.
It could rain in a room this big.
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.
This was the tricky bit. The really tricky bit, trickiness cubed.
He is one of those rare people who manages to be lugubriously sexy - like a well-hung eel. -- Emma Thompson
There’s an undeniable pleasure in stepping into an open-top sports car driven by a beautiful woman. It feels like you’re climbing into a metaphor.
Inside there was a wall three feet away. And between the wall and the door, in this unbelievably tiny space, 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. It was incredible that anyone or anything could function in such a space. It was like suddenly discovering a family of otters in one of your shoes.
I always felt with Hugh that there was a secret waiting to be let out. He thinks a great deal. He is not good at selling himself. Of course, he's terrific at comedy, playing the amiables and idiots, but those who know him well, and not that many do, know that as well as doubt and insecurity he has great inner strength, huge depth and thoughtfulness. -- Ben Elton
I was only allowed to wear a sock. But the only way to do the shot was to be naked. It's been my worst nightmare ever since the showers at school - I couldn't believe I was living it. (On his role in Maybe Baby)