No one but John Oliver is going to be able to figure out the code of making a 20-minute monologue on futures, securities, and currency speculation interesting, funny, and poignant politically.
It's OK to figure out murder mysteries, but you shouldn't need to figure out code. You should be able to read it.
I feel like any time John Oliver is added to something, the comedy is instantly there. He's so funny.
I love 'Last Call.' It took me a little bit to figure out that I wasn't going to be that guy in a suit telling monologue jokes.
It's always been most important for me to figure out "my space" rather than trying to check out what everyone else is up to, minute by minute. Technology is making it easier to connect to other people, but maybe harder to keep connected to yourself-- and that's essential for any artist, I think.
I think the most important thing journalism taught me is to mine for details. The details are key. You can't try to be funny or strange or poignant; you have to let the details be funny or strange or poignant for you.
That's what's interesting about people. It can be funny, but when [John] Travolta got there and did [comic moments] you're like, "Oh! This is really funny." Or when Karen [Gillan] and Taissa [Farmiga] do something, I'm like, "This came out so much funnier."
When I hear somebody like Hayes Carll write a song that's touching and poignant and sad and funny all at the same time, it motivates me to step my game up and try to figure out a way to get more different emotions into one line or one song.
The minute you start calculating and trying to figure out what a huge audience is going to think, you're going to fail.
I was funny -- ha-ha, not peculiar. It was a modest currency, like pennies: pedestrian, somewhat laborious, but a currency nonetheless. I was funny, in public, most often at my own expense.
I was a shy little kid, and getting up in front of people and making them laugh and being able to carry on a dialogue rather than a monologue was something that was pretty interesting to me because you could set yourself up - you could ask a question and then answer it.
In music so many people who have been addicts or suicidal are legends. People have this mentality, still, of thinking that if they go take care of themselves then they won't be as creative as they used to be. But I think that's bullshit. I bought into that one for years and I regret it because when I first went on medications, I thought I wouldn't be funny anymore. I thought I'd have to figure out a new life path but at least I'd be alive. But it turns out that I'm actually way more funny and organized and able to have a career now that I'm able to have my head on straight.
The definition of the good life is doing creative things, whether making music, trying to figure out how to do a particular piece of code, or putting together investments.
I kind of had to figure stuff out on my own and get myself snowboarding competitively again. I went through all types of different legs to try to learn which were going to work for me. Luckily, I was able to figure it out.
During your lifetime, the people of our culture are going to figure out how to live sustainably on this planet--or they're not. Either way, it's certainly going to be extraordinary. If they figure out how to live sustainably here, then hum anity will be able to see something it can't see right now: a future that extends into the indefinite future. If they don't figure this out, then I'm afraid the human race is going to take its place among the species that we're driving into extinction here every day--as many as 200--every day
John Maynard Keynes essentially said, don't try and figure out what the market is doing. Figure out a business you understand, and concentrate.
I know there's a great deal of speculation, and while I appreciate the interest, kind of, my contract ends in May and I'm trying to figure out what I'm going to do. I'm fortunate to have a couple of opportunities to think long and hard about.