John Oliver

Yes, it’s that special time of year where we voluntarily imbibe pumpkin spice lattes, the coffee that tastes like a candle.

We often read transcripts of Trump’s speeches, and it’s something that everyone should actually do once in a while. When you strip away his blindingly confident delivery and just read his words, it is staggering how incoherent he is.

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.

But it’s been 114 years. It’s like for over a century, America’s computer’s been saying, An update to your country is available and we’ve been clicking Remind me later again and again and again.

[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.

No person who does not reside in Canada shall induce electors to vote for or refrain from voting for a particular candidate. And apparently anyone found guilty of doing that could be fined up to $5,000, given a six-month jail term, or both. That is a ridiculous law and I guess what you’re saying, Canada, is do you wanna dance?.

[On Joni Mitchell] If I didn’t talk to her for the rest of my life, I wouldn’t miss her for a minute.

I’m probably in that next group of actors they call if Scarlett (Johansson) or Keira (Knightley) turns down a part. But I feel really lucky. To be a working actor is pretty incredible, because 99 per cent of actors are out of work. I know a lot of talented people who are better actors than me but haven’t had a break. It’s all down to timing and luck.

I always said marriage should be a fifty-fifty proposition. He should be at least fifty years old, and have at least fifty-million dollars.

I just want to continue being able to get roles that scare me and make me better and I think I can only grow as an artist if I do things that are scaring me and making me uncomfortable because that’s the only place you’ll learn anything.

A coworker at SNL dropped an angry c-bomb on me and i had the weirdest reaction. To my surprise, I blurted, ‘No. You don’t get to call me that. My parents love me. I’m not some Adult Child of an Alcoholic that’s going to take that shit.’

Sometimes people expect that I’m going to be tough. It’s not a bad situation. People treat you better. People are on time.

[On struggling to be taken seriously in the industry] Even now, people want to marginalize me. They want to attribute all my success to teenagers seeing my movies. I really resent it when people say, “It’s just a genre film; it’s a teen comedy.” It takes a lot of work to make these things have heart and resonance so they’re not just empty, disposable confections. But I don’t give a damn about other people’s perceptions, because I’ll show them. For women in this business, ascendancy is always a battle. It’s scrape and claw. I just try to stick to my guns and respect myself. I want to take the ingenues aside and say, “Value yourself! It’s O.K. if you have opinions!

[on turning down a role in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’] I didn’t really fancy sitting in a hotel room in Los Angeles for nine weeks for two minutes on screen, to be honest. I don’t really want to be an actor. I want to write and direct. I’ve been offered about ten British films. Obviously all shit. I was offered one with Johnny Depp, but again, it was a small character part, and I thought, ‘What’s the point?’ No one’s ever watched someone in seven films for one minute and said, ‘Yeah, give him his own film’…it doesn’t happen.”

I’m having a great time. I get to travel and see the world. And yeah, I’ll have a family, because I don’t want to miss out on that amazing experience, but it’s not defining who I am.

I’ve had some pretty good experiences on everything, even if the film doesn’t always work.

Guys act strange around me. I swear I don’t know why!

Mean girls are always going to exist, and you can’t fight them. Don’t lose yourself in going along with them just to hide, because you won’t feel good about that either. But there are people like you out there, trust me. When I was in school, I felt like I was the only one, and I got to college, and a whole new world opened up for me, and I’ve never, ever felt that way again. I did theater outside of school, and I think that was my salvation as well. I found people that had the same interests and respected each other. It exists, and keep trying to find it, because it’s worth it not to succomb.

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 still want Oprah to play my best friend. I want to spend time with Oprah.

You know my heart couldn’t take it.