Top 145 Quotes & Sayings by John Oliver
Explore popular quotes and sayings by a British comedian John Oliver.
Last updated on December 21, 2024.
I wanted to be a soccer player. I knew that couldn't happen.
The disconnect between America and its military is shocking.
Attending a Sarah Palin rally was simultaneously one of the strangest and most chilling events of my life.
People are friendlier in New York than London.
I feel non-stop Brit shame!
I think puns are not just the lowest form of wit, but the lowest form of human behavior.
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.
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.
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.
Armando Iannucci is one of my heroes. As I was growing up, he was probably the most influential comic voice that I had.
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.
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 know I'd be an absolutely horrendous politician.
I feel more at home knowing I'm not really at home. It takes all the pressure off you trying to fit in!
You have to do stand-up quite a long time before you learn how to do it well.
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.
If I wanted to take a more activist or journalistic slant in work, I should probably just go be an activist or a journalist. But I'm happy being a comedian.
I'm British, so obviously I repress any powerful emotions of any kind in relation to anything.
I realize how desperate it sounds for me, as a comedian, to ask you to laugh at my jokes.
Congress never loses its capacity to disappoint you.
I've always been interested in socially political, or overtly political, comedy.
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.
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.
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.
Campaign ads are the backbone of American democracy if American democracy suffered a gigantic spinal injury.
People, I guess, generally come to see me do stand-up with a working knowledge of my broad sense of humor on 'The Daily Show'... I don't think anyone would mistake me as an actual anchor.
I have exactly as much rhythm as you think I have.
I find it hard in my general life to think further than the week ahead.
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 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.
It's pretty physically unsettling, living life on a visa.
When you're dealing with serious subjects, there is a pressure to be absolutely sure that you know what you're doing.
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.
Being a Mets fan is like lending someone a lot of money and you just know that you'll never get paid back.
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 can't relax. I find vacations problematic.
People in Britain see Richard Quest as a kind of an offensive cartoon character.
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.
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. And that's really not a good instinct with a 'Daily Show' field piece, where it's supposed to be an interview.
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.
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.
Southern people are bigger-hearted and kinder than I had any right to expect.
There are some people who watch NASCAR for the highly skilled driving - but most people watch it for the crashes.
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.
I get nostalgic for British negativity. There is an inherent hope and positive drive to New Yorkers. When you go back to Britain, everybody is just running everything down. It's like whatever the opposite of a hug is.
There are so many low points with stand-up. You are perpetually humiliated, so it doesn't really matter anymore. I don't have any dignity left to lose. An audience can't hurt you anymore when you've been completely dismantled.
I would hate to meet myself at 15.
Stand-up, for me, is really more of an addiction, so you have to feed the beast whenever you can.
The moment I accept that there's an artistic, redeeming quality in puns, I have a horrible feeling I'll get hooked.
Here in America, people come out to see what they've known you to do. In England, it's like everyone comes out to tell you exactly how well they think you're doing.
I did sketch comedy, but I never did improv. So I've just tried to learn as I go.
My family is from Liverpool, so I have some of those vowel sounds, I've got the slack tone of someone from Birmingham, and then I was raised in Bedford, which is just north of London. So my accent, if it's possible, makes even less sense to a Brit than to an American.
I'm British; pessimism is my wheelhouse.
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.
We invented words; we'll tell you how they're supposed to sound.
I think Americans still can't help but respond to the natural authority of this voice. Deep down they long to be told what to do by a British accent. That's why so many infomercials have British people.
I've made so many people angry that they kind of blur into one unpleasant memory of people staring at you with somewhere between passive aggression and active aggression.
You just try to be true to your idea of what is funny and what is also interesting.
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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