Home
Authors
Tags
App
Get QuoteDark Inspirational Quotes App
" Every empire has to get sucked down the drain. As a British person, I know how it feels. "
John Oliver
Person
British
Down
Related Quotes:
" I'm British, so obviously I repress any powerful emotions of any kind in relation to anything. "
John Oliver
Anything
Powerful
Kind
" I'm always interested in audience interaction. Not so much aggressive audience interaction - I'm genuinely interested in how people see things. "
John Oliver
Things
Always
Audience
" Campaign ads are the backbone of American democracy if American democracy suffered a gigantic spinal injury. "
John Oliver
Campaign
Injury
American
" A Southern accent is not a club in my bag. "
John Oliver
Bag
Southern
Accent
" There are two kinds of hecklers: the destructive and constructive hecklers. "
John Oliver
Destructive
Constructive
Kinds
" I do one accent - my own. I can make it louder or quieter. That is the sum total of my vocal range. I thought I could do an American accent until I tried it in front of an American - the expression of horror is still burnt onto my retinas. "
John Oliver
American
I Can
Horror
" People really have come for a dialogue when they go to a stand-up show in the U.K. They say, 'I understand that you have now finished your little comedy monologue; now I have something to say regarding what I've just heard. "
John Oliver
Say
You
Understand
" You can write jokes at any point of the day. Jokes are not that hard to write, or they shouldn't be when it is literally your job. "
John Oliver
Point
Day
Hard
" I think puns are not just the lowest form of wit, but the lowest form of human behavior. "
John Oliver
Think
Human Behavior
Human
" There's never any time I think I'm a real journalist, because I don't have any of the qualifications or the intentions for that. "
John Oliver
Intentions
Never
Real
" When you're dealing with serious subjects, there is a pressure to be absolutely sure that you know what you're doing. "
John Oliver
Serious
You
Know
" In improv, the whole thing is that it is a relationship between the two people, as a back and forth. In standup, you don't really want to be listening to what somebody is saying; you want to project your jokes into their face. And that's really not a good instinct with a 'Daily Show' field piece, where it's supposed to be an interview. "
John Oliver
Daily
Face
Good
" We invented words; we'll tell you how they're supposed to sound. "
John Oliver
How
Words
Sound
" Sometimes it's good to remember how bad food can be, so you can enjoy the concept of flavour to the fullest. "
John Oliver
Good
You
Remember
" The British press are a group of unremitting scumbags. And sometimes they use that scumbaggery to good ends, and often not. "
John Oliver
Sometimes
Press
Group
" There is no greater anesthetic than sport. "
John Oliver
Greater
Sport
Anesthetic
" I would much rather America was a more stable, wonderful place. You know, I love it. "
John Oliver
Place
More
America
" If you work on a comedy show, your basic form of communication is teasing. That's generally how we speak to each other: you communicate the information between the lines of insulting sentences. "
John Oliver
Speak
Work
Information
" Politicians don't really bring up religion in England. "
John Oliver
Bring
Politicians
Up
" If you're asking me, would I have voted for Mitt Romney, the answer is absolutely not. Emphatically not. I cannot envision a world in which I would have voted for Mitt Romney unless I sustained a massive concussion. "
John Oliver
Me
You
Cannot
" If I wanted to take a more activist or journalistic slant in work, I should probably just go be an activist or a journalist. But I'm happy being a comedian. "
John Oliver
More
Go
Happy
" My family are from Liverpool, so I have some twang there - I have a Midlands accent, and I was raised about an hour north of London, so my voice is a mess. Although, to American ears, it sounds like the crisp language of a queen's butler. "
John Oliver
Language
Family
Queen
" I have exactly as much rhythm as you think I have. "
John Oliver
Think
Rhythm
Much
" You just try to be true to your idea of what is funny and what is also interesting. "
John Oliver
Interesting
Be True
You
" I've made so many people angry that they kind of blur into one unpleasant memory of people staring at you with somewhere between passive aggression and active aggression. "
John Oliver
Kind
Angry
You
" I have occasionally - if ever I do interviews that are difficult or nerve-wracking - I take my wife's dog tags and have them in my pocket because it's a very quick way to realize that what I'm doing is not that important. It's not really worth getting stressed about because it's not, you know, war. "
John Oliver
Know
You
Wife
" We in Britain stopped evolving gastronomically with the advent of the pie. Everything beyond that seemed like a brave, frightening new world. We knew the French were up to something across the Channel, but we didn't want anything to do with it. "
John Oliver
Everything
New
World
" People, I guess, generally come to see me do stand-up with a working knowledge of my broad sense of humor on 'The Daily Show'... I don't think anyone would mistake me as an actual anchor. "
John Oliver
Mistake
People
Daily
" I find it hard in my general life to think further than the week ahead. "
John Oliver
Find
Life
Hard
" My first 'Daily Show' piece was pretending I had this terrible immigrant journey, so I went to talk to an immigration lawyer who would help out people, and I ran into him in Penn Station about three months after I'd gotten the green card. I said, 'I got my green card yesterday.' And he hugged me because he understood that level of relief. "
John Oliver
People
Green
Daily