A Quote by John Oliver

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. — © John Oliver
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 try not to write jokes that are mean. I try my best to write jokes that are pretty universal and jokes that don't attack anyone. I know I often fall short of that and end up taking unfair swipes at people, but I try not to.
I write in reverse: Rather than come up with a narrative and write jokes for that narrative, I write jokes independently of the narrative, then I try to fit them in.
I was a journalist. I was a drummer. I was everything. I didn't know what the heck I was. But with Jack Paar, the job was very specific - no confusion. You came in each day. You wrote five pages of jokes. You handed the pages in... The pressure was to write five pages of jokes every day. I did it, and I thought, 'This is what I like to do.'
I don't write jokes first. I write down topics. I think of what I want to talk about, and then I write the jokes - they don't write me... And even if you don't think it's funny, you won't think it's boring. You might disagree, but you'll listen. And maybe even laugh as you disagree.
When you are in a room and your job is to write jokes 10 hours a day, your mind starts going to strange places.
When people have no interest in a subject, it's very hard to get them to laugh about it. If I had to write ten jokes about potholders, I don't think I could do it. But I could write ten jokes about Catholicism in the next twenty minutes.
I'm pretty laid-back in real life. I just love hanging with my friends and making jokes. The jokes don't stop - literally, all day.
We don't write jokes or anything, the furthest we'll go is we'll repeat certain jokes for the camera.
I never really feel like just standing there and telling jokes. I want to move around. In fact, it's hard for me to write a joke where I don't end up on the ground for some reason. Hey, at least that way, I know no comics will steal my jokes. Too many bruises.
I think my one of my strengths in standup is my ability to adlib. I do all my best writing on stage. I can sit down and write jokes, but I'd rather go on stage with a premise or an idea and let the jokes come that way. My creative juices are never flowing any better than when I'm onstage.
I would write 100 jokes a day. Most of them were terrible. But I just said, 'I'll write more than everybody else, and that's how I'll get better.'
Once you're in a room like '30 Rock,' it's a creative setting, so you write more even after you go home, just because you're still in that mode of coming up with jokes. So the job wasn't sapping standup jokes, but it was sapping stand up time and energy, and I wouldn't be able to travel as much.
I try to write three jokes every day. I don't sit down and write them, it's just things that pop into my head. Then I'll go watch it fail onstage that night.
Tweeting is a great way to practice writing jokes, but there is so much more to comedy writing than just jokes. Jokes are a necessity, but you also have to learn how to write characters, to break a story, to keep coherence between episodes. I've learned more by being a TV writer than I ever could've on my own.
I think things evolve into jokes. I don't generally write them down as jokes. I talk them out.
People would say, "Oh, you say you just do jokes." I don't just do jokes. I do jokes. Jokes are important. They saved my life when I was younger. Hopefully we're making things nicer at the end of the day for people. That's the entire goal, and that's the touchstone and the North Star for the tone.
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