John Oliver

Last year in L.A. county 150 out of 151 incumbents ran unopposed. And come on. They could at least go through the motions of pretending there was another candidate. Just throw a robe on a pelican and tape a gavel to his wing. Or – I’ll tell you what – you’re in L.A. Just pretend you’re considering Blake Lively for the job. Movie studios do that all the time.

I don’t know how you explain Piers Morgan back to Americans now. I don’t think he ever intended for America to be his home, and there’s a difference between criticising the place you have come to call home and the place you have come to live in for a bit. Ideally, on the Venn diagram between myself and Piers there would be no overlap whatsoever, on either a personal or professional level. If we could be two non-interlocking circles I’d be fine with that. Any comparison with him makes me want to challenge you to a duel.

[on Anthony Weiner] I remember him now… the man whose name is so perfect for the scandal he was caught up in that it rekindled my faith in God.

Congress is like jazz – it’s really about the bills it’s not passing. It’s also like jazz in that most people hate it and anyone who says they don’t are lying.

That’s right, it was a boy. And finally, we have a member of the royal family with an actual excuse for being a toothless, petulant, useless human being…That one could get me into trouble back home.

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.

I’ve just got to get that album out. I have to get it out, if it’s the last thing I do.

I’ve had tinnitus for about ten years, and since I started protecting my ears it hasn’t got any worse – touch wood.

When you’re acting, you’re a character and you can hide behind that. Music is who you are right then and there – you can’t hide.

An awful lot of gay pop stars pretend to be straight. I’m going to start a movement of straight pop stars pretending to be gay.

I don’t want to stop and I don’t think Pete (Pete Townshend) does. We’re at the pinnacle of our decline.

You can’t give up something you really believe in for financial reasons. If you die by the roadside – so be it. But at least you know you’ve tried. Ten minutes in the music scene was the equal of one hundred years outside of it.

I’d rather be called King than other things I’ve been called.

You would find in a lot of Zep stuff that the riff was the juggernaut that careered through and I worked the lyrics around this.

I am now determined to do really weird parts but I think I overdo it in auditions so nobody really trusts me!

I prefer being as far from the centre of celebrity as possible.

I am sarcastic and dry, but I also have a pretty huge zest for life.

When Yale reached out, I thought it was a hoax, but they really followed through.

I sing and dance as well, and I would like to do the whole Hilary Duff thing.

I find Hollywood really toxic.

I needed to explore my talent and versatility and see if I had another side to me, another sound.