Top 50 John Oliver Quotes

I watch one news channel until my soul can’t take it anymore. It’s the background of my life.

Campaign ads are the backbone of American democracy if American democracy suffered a gigantic spinal injury.

There is an inherent hope and positive drive to New Yorkers.

The only thing I’m nervous about is talking to guests like human beings, because all of my interviews so far have been attacking people. I have a genuine concern about sitting across from an actor whose movies I obviously haven’t seen.

It’s exciting to have a role in anything that’s Claymation, just because you’re always intrigued by what a clay wizard version of yourself would be.

I think puns are not just the lowest form of wit, but the lowest form of human behavior.

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.’

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.

If you’re asking me, would I have voted for Mitt Romney, the answer is absolutely not. Emphatically not. I cannot envision a world in which I would have voted for Mitt Romney unless I sustained a massive concussion.

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.

There are two kinds of hecklers: the destructive and constructive hecklers.

I would hate to meet myself at 15.

I know I’d be an absolutely horrendous politician.

If you work on a comedy show, your basic form of communication is teasing. That’s generally how we speak to each other: you communicate the information between the lines of insulting sentences.

I would never heckle someone. That’s why I think I’m so interested in someone that would.

It’s pretty physically unsettling, living life on a visa.

I feel non-stop Brit shame!

There is no greater anesthetic than sport.

Having a human conversation is not something I’ve had any training in either as a comedian or as, you know, a human being.

I realize how desperate it sounds for me, as a comedian, to ask you to laugh at my jokes.

We in Britain stopped evolving gastronomically with the advent of the pie. Everything beyond that seemed like a brave, frightening new world. We knew the French were up to something across the Channel, but we didn’t want anything to do with it.

When you’ve married someone who’s been at war, there is nothing you can do that compares to that level of selflessness and bravery.

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.

People really have come for a dialogue when they go to a stand-up show in the U.K. They say, ‘I understand that you have now finished your little comedy monologue; now I have something to say regarding what I’ve just heard.

I find it hard in my general life to think further than the week ahead.

Southern people are bigger-hearted and kinder than I had any right to expect.

I did sketch comedy, but I never did improv. So I’ve just tried to learn as I go.

Sometimes it’s good to remember how bad food can be, so you can enjoy the concept of flavour to the fullest.

It’s a great time to be doing political satire when the world is on a knife edge.

I have occasionally – if ever I do interviews that are difficult or nerve-wracking – I take my wife’s dog tags and have them in my pocket because it’s a very quick way to realize that what I’m doing is not that important. It’s not really worth getting stressed about because it’s not, you know, war.

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.

The British media is sinking down, as the American news media has lowered the bar for all of humanity. British news media is definitely trying to stoop down to that level. Everyone is stooping to the lowest common denominator.

Australia turns out to be a sensational place, albeit one of the most comfortably racist places I’ve ever been in. They’ve really settled into their intolerance like an old resentful slipper.

Being a Mets fan is like lending someone a lot of money and you just know that you’ll never get paid back.

As any Brit will understand, things get a little easier when you don’t have to be number one any more. Really, the fall of an empire is not as bad as everyone thinks. It’s like retirement. People fear retirement, but it can turn out be rather pleasant.

I’m British; pessimism is my wheelhouse.

Most stand-ups, once they have done it, think of it as their default job. I’m pretty sure Jon Stewart still feels that way now. You are a stand-up first; other things come and go.

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.

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.

I feel more at home knowing I’m not really at home. It takes all the pressure off you trying to fit in!

I’ve always been interested in socially political, or overtly political, comedy. And I guess I’ve always liked to channel some kind of personal element to that.

I do one accent – my own. I can make it louder or quieter. That is the sum total of my vocal range. I thought I could do an American accent until I tried it in front of an American – the expression of horror is still burnt onto my retinas.

The moment I accept that there’s an artistic, redeeming quality in puns, I have a horrible feeling I’ll get hooked.

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.

We invented words; we’ll tell you how they’re supposed to sound.

There is so much cross-pollination between the U.S. and Britain in terms of comedians. British TV comedies work well in the U.S. American stand-ups make it big in Britain.

A Southern accent is not a club in my bag.

Congress never loses its capacity to disappoint you.

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.