To me, he`s a hero, ... He`s not polite. He`s not someone you want to take home to meet your mother, necessarily. This is a guy in search of truth. Incidentally, that truth one day could save your life or the life of someone you love. That`s a heroic thing.

[on the Oxford-vs.-Cambridge Boat Race] The year was 1980, I was #4 in this particular encounter, and the result was a loss by Cambridge by a distance of five feet, which is something which I will carry to my grave . . . in fact, I shouldn`t really say this, because I still to this day wouldn`t want to give any pleasure or satisfaction to the opposing crew. But yes, it`s true, it was a very bitter defeat.

[on raising his daughter] Girls are complicated. The instruction manual that comes with girls is 800 pages, with chapters 14, 19, 26 and 32 missing, and it`s badly translated, hard to figure out.

[on his late father`s reaction to his character Dr. Gregory House] He would be absolutely appalled. He was an endlessly polite, generous and soft-spoken man. He was no pushover, but he would never hurt, shock or outrage people just for the hell of it. At the same time, I hope he would be entertained and see that science and logic are like a religion to House. He`d approve of that.

I grew up with an impatience with the anti-scientific. So I`m a bit miffed with our current love affair with all things Eastern. If I sneeze on the set, 40 people hand me echinacea. But I`d no sooner take that than eat a pencil. Maybe that`s why I took up boxing. It`s my response to men in white pajamas feeling each other`s chi.

[]on what he misses about England] The buildings and the cruelty. They`re very harsh people, the British: hard to impress, very tough on each other, but I rather like that. It`s not that the British are more honest - you`re just under no illusion with them. 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.

Recalling his father winning a gold medal in rowing at the 1948 Olympics in London: He was in a coxless pair with a man called Jack Wilson. I`ve got a fantastic picture on my desk of the two of them getting their medals on a pontoon at Henley. I imagine they were playing the national anthem and my dad is very rigid, `this is the way to behave`, and Jack Wilson is loose and groovy and looks like he should be mixing a martini. I sometimes wished my father could take that pleasure in himself.

Something in me says you shouldn`t have toys.

When asked if living in America would make him any less pessimistic or miserable: Oh, I hope nothing would ever do that. I won`t let go of my roots.

Guilt I can do. If [I have] any expertise at all, it`s in the area of guilt. I have a black belt in guilt. If you ever want a guilt-off, the next time we meet let`s see how we match up. I`m pretty confident in that area.

[his speech after winning a Golden Globe for "House M.D." (2004)] I am absolutely speechless. Seriously, I don`t have a speech. People are falling all over themselves to send you free shoes and free cuff links and colonic irrigations for two. Nobody ever offers you a free acceptance speech. There just seems to be a gap in the market. I would love to be able to pull out a speech by Dolce & Gabbana.

[on the difficulty of performing with an American accent] 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 Cambridge] I went there to row. I`ll be blunt with it. It`s been ten years, and I think the admissions tutor can take it now . . . but that`s really what I went for, and anthropology was the most convenient subject to read while spending eight hours a day on the river.

I travel to work on my motorcycle, so it`s jeans, boots and a brown Aero leather jacket that weighs as much as I do. If it were black, it would seem like I`ve got a [Marlon Brando] idea going on, which I don`t.

[on picking up his new hobby] Boxing is fascinating. It`s good for the soul to be made to feel clumsy. I swank around during the week thinking I`m a big cheese, but you don`t feel like that when you`re in the ring with a chap who knows what he`s doing. It`s ritual humiliation. I`m going to be slugged about and probably killed, but I love it and have to do something to keep fit.

I picked a reverence for medicine because I rather hero-worshiped my father [a former doctor], and because I admire doctors, I admire study, empiricism and rational thought. I don`t admire crystals and chewing willow bark and herbal remedies.