John Oliver

It hits you in small ways and large, doesn’t it? For instance, had you considered the fact that portraits of Trump are going to be hanging in our airports? Uh… or that the man who disparaged a Gold Star family will now be expected to comfort the families of fallen soldiers? And maybe you’ve tried to make yourself feel better, fantasizing that he might Google how much does the president get paid?, get depressed, and then resign. But that is when you remember Mike fucking Pence, who might be even worse, because he looks like he’s from the 1950s, but he thinks like he’s from the 1650s. Oh, what’s that, you say? Her pregnancy was terminated before birth? Well, clearly she’s a witch. Hold a funeral for the fetus and throw the mother in a lake.

Prison sentences are a lot like penises – if they’re used correctly, even a short one can do the trick… is a rumor I have heard.

Any single part of Brexit is a mountainous task and that is before you get to the tiny little bits that you understand that we haven’t even thought might be a problem. John Oliver

Optimism is nice if you can swing it. But you’ve got to be careful, because it can feed into the normalization of Donald Trump. And he is not normal. He’s abnormal. He’s a human What is wrong with this picture?

One failed attempt at a shoe bomb and we all take off our shoes at the airport. Thirty-one school shootings since Columbine and no change in our regulation of guns.

In the last series, we set up a church [to expose televangelists and the ease of avoiding tax through establishing a religious organisation]. It took a lot of legal advice and months of gathering correspondence with one pastor. In terms of the UK, I’m not sure what the Inland Revenue’s position on churches is. The IRS is very much of the opinion that all churches, whatever their form, operate tax free. How would I make sense of what we achieved? We achieved nothing! We achieved $70,000 in single [donations], a four-foot wooden penis and five vials of human sperm. Although a lot of people would consider that a decent year’s work, I suppose. It’s a pretty impressive room full of tat.

Even when I was at ‘SNL,’ I didn’t do impersonations. I always wanted to be the kind of person who could do them – I always thought they were the coolest thing on the show – but I didn’t have any experience.

[On strange stories written about him] Recently a magazine had on the cover that I was pregnant. I was just like, “Wow!” It was without a hint of irony. I didn’t know what to make of that one. I saw a couple of comments under the article saying, “That’s why he always wears jackets. He always wears layers to hide it.

My advice to kids is give it your all! Give it 110% and don’t give up!

Led Zeppelin was a very sensitive and beautiful animal beast.

Any single part of Brexit is a mountainous task and that is before you get to the tiny little bits that you understand that we haven’t even thought might be a problem. John Oliver

There is no such thing as ugly. That’s a word that doesn’t really enter my vocabulary. If there’s any definition to being perfect, you’re perfect at being yourself.

The problem is, I don’t think I’ve got too much to offer at the minute. I’m busy working on myself. This sounds like real therapy talk, but it’s like, you’ve got to be happy with yourself before you can go out and get yourself a girl.

No, I’ve never thought that I was gay. And that’s not something you think. It’s something you know.

That night’s show was watched by ten million people, so I guess that director at The Second City who said the audience “didn’t want to see a sketch with two women” can go shit in his hat.

As strange as movie making is, doing love scenes for the first time with someone you’ve never even said hello to does work in terms of having a fresh quality to a relationship

Dope never helped anybody sing better or play music better or do anything better. All dope can do for you is kill you – and kill you the long, slow, hard way.

Twelve was a real turning point for me as I moved to a mixed school, and then I became cool and discovered hair gel.

I’m not perfect! I’m human. I make mistakes. But I try to be as conscious as I can about things I should be. If I’m going to do something commercial and mainstream and made for the masses, I just believe you can make those kinds of films with quality – and good ideas and good intentions. There’s a lot of negativity out there.

I really like comedy that brings people together. There’s a lot of comedies lately that have been at people’s expense or been kind of acidic or mean-spirited. And some folks like that, and I think there’s room for that, but that’s not my style. I like something that makes us all feel closer. Comedy, at its best, can be healing.

So when I come across as being everybody’s mate and nice and humble, I’m only nice and humble to a certain degree; the other side of me is arrogantly determined to do what the f**k I want.