John Oliver

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.

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?

[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.

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.

Think of our government as a body. The IRS is the anus. It’s nobody’s favorite part, but you need that thing working properly or everything goes to shit real quick.

It is a little insulting that you’re trying to appeal to adult women voters the same way that Mattel attempts to appeal to eight year olds. And at least Barbie’s pink bus had the good sense to unfold into a sweet hot tub and party den combo. … The only way it could be even more patronizing is if its wheels were giant NuvaRings and they refused to let women drive it.

We rely more on enthusiasm than actual skill. Whatever you do, do it enthusiastically and people will like it more.

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

Anything where we’re the butt of the joke, no one tells us about it.

It’s funny that it all becomes about clothes. It’s bizarre. You work your butt off and then you win an award and it’s all about your dress. You can’t get away from it.

I almost chopped my thumb off once. Just before I left home, I was about ten or eleven years old, and I was trying to open a bone. Can you imagine that? A bone! I was trying to get the marrow out of a bone, and I took the ax, and I went to chop it, and something slipped, and the ax went right down there and damn near cut it off

Trump hasn’t said one crazy thing, he’s said thousands of crazy things, each of which blunts the effect of the others.

I’m the type to swallow my blood ‘fore I swallow my pride.

Sometimes we have criticism that is very constructive.

If there was no ladies, I wouldn’t wanna be on the planet. Ladies, friends, and music – without those three, I wouldn’t wanna be here.

I have my moments – usually twice every album – when I basically lose it.

Down the road, I’ll probably have a kid or two or three. And there will probably be political events or spiritual things to comment on, and humor.

I think I’m brave about some things and a huge coward in other ways. My fake bravery is talking in front of a bunch of people who might hate it.

I don’t think I’ve aged gracefully.

I’m not one for parties and stuff like that. I get a bit nervous around lots of people. Being invisible is what I really enjoy. That I find quite entertaining.