from an undated LIFE interview with Hugh Laurie

LIFE: Your father, who won an Olympic gold medal in rowing for England, also coached you in the sport. Share a bit of his oarsman wisdom.
LAURIE: My father didn't deliberately coin aphorisms. He was far too modest a man to think that anyone would be writing down his profundities. I do remember him saying some very good things like "Any idiot can win." That's always stayed with [me]. What he meant was "Winning doesn't actually teach you anything." You win. End of story. But the losing and how you deal with and and what you take from it - that's the interesting bit...
The whole thing about rowing is that you're facing the wrong way. If you fall behind, you can' see who's winning. That starts to mess with your head: how you keep in contact until you push for the finish line. [My father and I] were discussing there very strategic pushes and he said, "Well, you could do all that, but I remember when I rowed, we'd just have one push. You put everything into that one push, and if it it doesn't work, well, we all lose some races." The funny thing about that was, he never did lose any races. He won everything. But I thought that was a wonderful way of looking at life: You have one big push. Put everything you've got into it. If it doesn't work, well, we all lose some races. If you're trying to hold back, if you don't commit, you're never going to get results."