John Oliver Quotes
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I'm not really much of an actor, so when I started on 'The Daily Show,' I was just trying to adopt the faux authority of a newsperson. Having a British accent definitely gave me a sonic leg up on that because there is a faux authority to the British accent in and of itself.
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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.'
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You just try to be true to your idea of what is funny and what is also interesting.
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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!
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I wanted to be a soccer player. I knew that couldn't happen.
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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.
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People in Britain see Richard Quest as a kind of an offensive cartoon character.
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My family are from Liverpool, so I have some twang there - I have a Midlands accent, and I was raised about an hour north of London, so my voice is a mess. Although, to American ears, it sounds like the crisp language of a queen's butler.
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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.
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I did sketch comedy, but I never did improv. So I've just tried to learn as I go.
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I knew I was going to go into the field and make fun of people to their faces. I knew what I was getting into.
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A Southern accent is not a club in my bag.
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There are some people who watch NASCAR for the highly skilled driving - but most people watch it for the crashes.
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Americans just don't understand dry wit.
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People are friendlier in New York than London.
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People are always going to say stupid things, and you're always going to be able to make jokes about that, but it should be the last thing you add in, because it's the easiest thing.
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I know I'd be an absolutely horrendous politician.
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I'm British; pessimism is my wheelhouse.
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Politicians don't really bring up religion in England.
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Armando Iannucci is one of my heroes. As I was growing up, he was probably the most influential comic voice that I had.
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You have to do stand-up quite a long time before you learn how to do it well.
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Stand-up, for me, is really more of an addiction, so you have to feed the beast whenever you can.
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I think puns are not just the lowest form of wit, but the lowest form of human behavior.
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There are two kinds of hecklers: the destructive and constructive hecklers.