John Oliver Quotes
- All Quotes
-
It's a great time to be doing political satire when the world is on a knife edge.
-
In improv, the whole thing is that it is a relationship between the two people, as a back and forth. In standup, you don't really want to be listening to what somebody is saying; you want to project your jokes into their face.
-
You don't really know when stand-up material is TV ready; it's just at what point you're willing to let it go and not work on it anymore. I'm not sure there is a point at which you think: 'And that is finished.'
-
I've said yes to everything that Jon Stewart has asked me to do. That's been a pretty good career decision, I think.
-
You just try to be true to your idea of what is funny and what is also interesting.
-
There's never any time I think I'm a real journalist, because I don't have any of the qualifications or the intentions for that.
-
Congress never loses its capacity to disappoint you.
-
You can write jokes at any point of the day. Jokes are not that hard to write, or they shouldn't be when it is literally your job.
-
I think puns are not just the lowest form of wit, but the lowest form of human behavior.
-
I would much rather America was a more stable, wonderful place. You know, I love it.
-
I feel more at home knowing I'm not really at home. It takes all the pressure off you trying to fit in!
-
For the record if someone did that to me I'd hitch a ride to the International Space Station straight away; of course who am I kidding, they would never let me in, I've got spiders for hands! Internet is mean!
-
People in Britain see Richard Quest as a kind of an offensive cartoon character.
-
Stand-up, for me, is really more of an addiction, so you have to feed the beast whenever you can.
-
Stand-up comedy seems like a terrifying thing. Objectively. Before anyone has done it, it seems like one of the most frightening things you could conceive, and there's just no shortcut - you just have to do it.
-
You have to do stand-up quite a long time before you learn how to do it well.
-
I know I'd be an absolutely horrendous politician.
-
A Southern accent is not a club in my bag.
-
Politicians don't really bring up religion in England.
-
Every empire has to get sucked down the drain. As a British person, I know how it feels.
-
You have to do stand-up quite a long time before you learn how to do it well. It was probably years before I was confident enough in stand-up that I was able to talk about the things I wanted to talk about, the way I wanted to talk about them.
-
People are friendlier in New York than London.
-
My first 'Daily Show' piece was pretending I had this terrible immigrant journey, so I went to talk to an immigration lawyer who would help out people, and I ran into him in Penn Station about three months after I'd gotten the green card. I said, 'I got my green card yesterday.' And he hugged me because he understood that level of relief.
-
I'm British; pessimism is my wheelhouse.