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5501941
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Death and disaster are at our shoulders every second of our lives, trying to get at us. Missing, a lot of the time. A lot of miles on the motorway without a front wheel blow-out. A lot of viruses that slither through our bodies without snagging. A lot of pianos that fall a minute after we've passed. Or a month, it makes no difference. So unless were going to get down on our knees and give thanks every time disaster misses, it makes no sense..
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Hugh Laurie |
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84f0d00
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This was the tricky bit. The really tricky bit, trickiness cubed.
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humour
hugh-laurie
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Hugh Laurie |
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eda9968
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Pain is an event. It happens to you, and you deal with it in whatever way you can.
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Hugh Laurie |
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9b507dd
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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..
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night
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Hugh Laurie |
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ca551aa
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I think you're a dangerous, corrupt, lying piece of nine-day-old mosquito shit.
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Hugh Laurie |
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960f5a6
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The only good thing I've ever noticed about money, the only positive aspect of an otherwise pretty vulgar commodity, is that you can use it to buy things.
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Hugh Laurie |
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2424915
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We want different things. Men want to have sex with a woman. Then they want to have sex with another woman. And then another. Then they want to eat cornflakes and sleep for a while, and then they want to have sex with another woman, and another, until they die. Women,' and I thought I'd better pick my words carefully when describing a gender I didn't belong to, 'want a relationship. They may not get it, or they may sleep with a lot of men b..
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sex
men
women
monogamy
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Hugh Laurie |
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0d0dcd0
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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.
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Hugh Laurie |
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d1acc7d
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Newton's Third Law of Conversation, if it existed, would hold that every statement implies an equal and opposite statement. To say that I'd turned the offer down raised the possibility that I might not have done.
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Hugh Laurie |
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a24174f
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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.
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Hugh Laurie |
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b8497e0
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Just because it's a bad job doesn't mean I need to do it badly.
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Hugh Laurie |
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f8c6754
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It was the sheer variety of the pain that stopped me from crying out. It came from so many places, spoke so many languages, wore so many dazzling varieties of ethnic costume, that for a full fifteen seconds I could only hang my jaw in amazement.
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Hugh Laurie |
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cdcf354
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I was shown into a room. A red room. Red wallpaper, red curtains, red carpet. 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..
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funny
enormous
hyperbole
rooms
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Hugh Laurie |
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ee77416
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Having a vote once every four years is not the same thing as democracy.
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Hugh Laurie |
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bc3edf9
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Imagine that you have to break someone's arm. Right or left, doesn't matter. The point is that you have to break it, because if you don't...well, that doesn't matter either. Let's just say bad things will happen if you don't. Now, my question goes like this: do you break the arm quickly -- snap, whoops, sorry, here let me help you with that improvised splint -- or do you drag the whole business out for a good eight minutes, every now and th..
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Hugh Laurie |
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62efc23
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Love is a word. A sound. Its association with a particular feeling is arbitrary, unmeasurable, and ultimately meaningless
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Hugh Laurie |
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5595006
|
I looked at her and sighed. In another world, I thought to myself, it might have worked. In another world, in another universe, in another time, as two quite different people, we really might have been able to put all of this behind us, take off to some sun-drenched Caribbean island, and have sex and pineapple juice, non-stop, for a year.
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Hugh Laurie |
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c8b1ca9
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Now, where did I leave my time-machine? Oh I know, next Wednesday.
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Hugh Laurie |
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9e064e7
|
and as I walked, I tried to see the funny side. It wasn't easy, and I'm still not sure that I managed it properly, but it's just something I like to do when things aren't going well. Because what does it mean, to say that things aren't going well? Compared to what? You can say: compared to how things were going a couple of hours ago, or a couple of years ago. But that's not the point. If two cars are speeding towards a brick wall with no br..
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Hugh Laurie |
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1ff5892
|
I didn't really know the answer to this myself, but saying that wasn't going to get me off the hook. I started talking without any clear idea of what was going to come out. 'Because sex causes more unhappiness than it gives pleasure,' I said. 'Because men and women want different things, and one of them always ends up being disappointed. Because I don't get asked much, and I hate asking. Because I'm not very good at it. Because I'm used to..
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Hugh Laurie |
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ba175f3
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There once was a man who went to see a psychiatrist, crippled by a fear of flying. His phobia was based on the belief that there would be a bomb on any plane he boarded. The psychiatrist tried to shift the phobia but couldn't, so he sent his patient to a statistician. The statistician prodded a calculator and informed the man that the odds against there being a bomb on board the next flight he took were half a million to one. The man still ..
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Hugh Laurie |
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a486ffb
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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...
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Hugh Laurie |
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9db9c73
|
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.
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humor
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Hugh Laurie |
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4b8e32d
|
It's good that you feel bad,' she said, after some thought. Not much thought, obviously, but some. 'If you felt nothing, it would mean there is no love, no passion. And we are nothing without passion.
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Hugh Laurie |
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d9dcfb9
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The sexual mechanisms of the two genders are just not compatible, that's the horrible truth of it. (...) This is a truth we dare not acknowledge these days - because sameness is our religion and heretics are no more welcome now than they ever were - but I'm going to acknowledge it, because I've always felt that humility before the facts is the only thing that keeps a rational man together. Be humble in the face of facts, and proud in the fa..
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sex
rationality
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Hugh Laurie |
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4dc5c44
|
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.
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Hugh Laurie |
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20f1c97
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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.
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Hugh Laurie |
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580ce3d
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Because what does it mean, to say that things aren't going well? Compared to what? You can say: compared to how things were going a couple of hours ago, or a couple of years ago. But that's not the point. If two cars are speeding towards a brick wall with no brakes, and one car hits the wall moments before the other, you can't spend those moments saying the second car is much better off than the first. Death and disaster are at our shoulder..
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Hugh Laurie |
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2710557
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Necessity is the mother of self-delusion.
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Hugh Laurie |
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5ed81a9
|
Americans have never really caught on to the idea of eating sheep. I think they think it's cissy.
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Hugh Laurie |
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c307f69
|
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."
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Hugh Laurie |
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7d9df82
|
Rayner avait sans doute une dizaine d'annees de plus que moi. Ce qui ne pose en soi aucun probleme. J'entretiens des relations chaleureuses, sans bras casses, avec quantite de personnes de cet age.
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Hugh Laurie |
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b5f4346
|
Plus laid aussi qu'un parking
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Hugh Laurie |
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fdd7b2b
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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.
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Hugh Laurie |
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cd2d1eb
|
Allez-vous au plus vite - crac ! Oh, desole, laissez-moi vous mettre une attelle, monsieur.
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Hugh Laurie |
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c2efca6
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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.
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Hugh Laurie |
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b273b5c
|
I was working on the principle, you see, that the more obvious you are, the less obvious you are.
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Hugh Laurie |
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4013127
|
Je suppose que quelqu'un, quelque part, le connait - l'a baptise ainsi, l'a gueule dans l'escalier a l'heure du petit-dej
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Hugh Laurie |
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758799f
|
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 tres espaces.
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Hugh Laurie |
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6a1b039
|
Nous avons echange des civilites. Mi-scenario hollywodien, mi-bonne societe. Elle a commence a hurler, puis essaye de me mordre la main.
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Hugh Laurie |
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d0e37c6
|
I said no thank you a dozen times, and fuck off once.
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Hugh Laurie |
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59bfd87
|
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.
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Hugh Laurie |
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560313d
|
I had to wonder how Ginny could hold her head up under the weight of cosmetics smeared all over her face. Underneath it all, she may have been quite pretty. Or she may have been Dirk Bogarde. I will never know.
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Hugh Laurie |
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a92b4fb
|
In war, whichever side may call itself the victor, there are no winners, but all are losers." Neville Chamberlain"
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Hugh Laurie |