There's just sort of this assumption that whatever . . .the writers come up with,

Some people are drawn naturally - there are natural guitarists, and there are natural piano players, and I think guitar implies travel, a sort of footloose gypsy existence. You grab your bag and you go to the next town.

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?

It doesn't rain at all in California. Once a month, a man drives through spraying Evian.

I just feel like that's a young person's game. It's partly because you spend your whole time mocking authority figures, and once you reach the age where you could be a general or a bishop or a politician, it means something different. It stops being the kid in class doing impressions of the teacher.

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.