John Oliver

Our president-elect [Trump] has at various times said he’d bomb civilians, loot oil, and waterboard, which isn’t a military strategy so much as the series of words that Donald Rumsfeld mutters so he can stay hard while he’s masturbating.

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.

Wow. Losing 95 percent of your audience in just five years. That basically makes Obama the NBC of presidents.

Mothers – we owe everything to them. They gave birth to us, they nurtured us, they made us who we are. And this Mother’s Day, we have just one thing to say to all the mothers out there: Get the fuck back to work.

Wow, that is hard to watch. Hi, this is Ted Cruz, just calling to remind you to vote for a man who insulted my wife and said my dad helped kill JFK. Anyway, life has no meaning. Thank you. I want to die.

Healthcare is like a pair of gym shorts. Even if it covers nearly all it is supposed to, you’re still left with some problematic gaps and terrible things can happen.

The weird thing is, when Darrell Hammond or Will Ferrell or Dana Carvey did an impersonation of a president, no one assumed it was personal, but because Sarah Palin and I are both women and people think women are meaner to each other, everyone assumed it was personal.

I’ve been scared and I’ve liked not hanging on to stuff where I know that I’m in my comfort zone.

Roc Nation is such an incredible, unique team, especially in the music industry. Everyone genuinely loves and cares about each other.

I’ve just been so lucky, but also I’m acutely aware that I’m only a brushstroke in the whole piece.

The postman wants an autograph. The cab driver wants a picture. The waitress wants a handshake. Everyone wants a piece of you.

(On his feud with rapper Ja Rule) Right now he’s desperate. He should be talking about me, not Eminem and (Dr. Dre) and everybody else. He’ll lose, he knows that. The route that he has to take is the “I’m a mad gangsta” hardcore route, and ain’t nobody gonna believe him.

Confidence is everything in this business.

Denver’s pretty quick. They couldn’t keep up with him in the open field.

I managed to pick out some pretty special people.

I did audition for “Home and Away”, but they never called me back. I feel I escaped in a way.

[On his early day in the music business] I stepped on a lot of toes… at that time.

When we first started DreamWorks, I said to Jeffrey, ‘We ought to call this new company the Spielberg Brothers. Anything Steven thinks is important, we want to invest in.

I’m not sensitive, I give people things exactly the way they are, and if they’re ready to absorb it they will, and if they aren’t they won’t.

Latinos are here to stay. As citizen Raquel, I’m proud to be Latina.

Amy Poehler and I have been friends for so long we’re like Oprah and Gale. Only we’re not denying anything.