John Oliver

British politics, when done well, can be very fun. John Oliver

Democracy is like a tambourine – not everyone can be trusted with it.’

A hundred and thirteen is a lot of tests. It’s approaching the amount that you’d ask your doctor for the morning after you woke up from a one-night stand with Colin Farrell.

[about political pundits suggesting Trump be given a chance to be president] Now, in the broadest sense, I get that impulse: hope for the best in the face of very long odds. It’s like we’re on a plane and we just found out our pilot is a wombat.

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.

Florida, just because you’re shaped like some combination of a gun and a d*ck doesn’t mean you have to act that way.

Be different, stand out, and work your butt off.

I’ve really gotten into hip-hop again recently. I’m reliving my childhood. I’ve been listening to a lot of Wu-Tang Clan. I always wanted to be a rapper when I was younger. That’s always what I wanted to be before I started acting.

2016… falls well below my standards of quality!

Then there’s the story of ill-fated love. It’s universal.

Well, I speak for my show only when I say we’re in debt to journalists because we’re just pulling clips all day long which they made in the first place. We know that a lot of people watching our show haven’t been watching the news as closely as we have – they haven’t been following hundreds of reporters on Twitter all day. So I guess our goal is to say: ‘Hey, here’s what happened today in 10 minutes, and hopefully we’ll tell you in a way that won’t make you throw your remote at the television’.

Confidence is key. Sometimes, you need to look like you’re confident even when you’re not.

I’ve never done work for money, ever. If your choices are based on grosses and the film doesn’t do well, what does that mean? It leaves you with nothing.

[On working with Woody Allen] That was a very surreal experience: I had studied the script right down to the punctuation marks, and then he would say ‘we’re not going to say what’s on the page, and you don’t really have to either, try to keep up.’

So, I think it has to do with the product and what you take to the public. If they like it, they’re going to come see you, and if they don’t, and if you’re kind of getting out of the trendy line of things, then they won’t come see you.

I don’t enjoy any kind of danger or volatility. I don’t have that kind of ‘I love the bad guys’ thing. No, no thank you. I like nice people.

I don’t want to cover up anymore. Not my face, not my mind, not my soul, not my thoughts, not my dreams, not my struggles, not my emotional growth. Nothing.

When I’m no longer rapping I want to open up an ice-cream parlor and call myself Scoop Dogg.

I tell you, in this world being a little crazy helps to keep you sane.

We’re still trying to break records on the twentieth anniversary of Live Aid. I’ve just heard Bob Geldof has put Phil Collins on a jet to Philadelphia. There’s nothing going on there, we just don’t want him around this year. No I’m joking, of course we didn’t put him on a jet. We stuck him in a catapult. To be fair, he didn’t get very far. Although it worked in rehearsals when we used it on Chris De Burgh. I could do a whole routine about injuring Phil f**king Collins.

I’m not Sammy Glick. I’ve never killed anyone. I don’t have to. I’m too talented.