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" I get nostalgic for British negativity. There is an inherent hope and positive drive to New Yorkers. When you go back to Britain, everybody is just running everything down. It's like whatever the opposite of a hug is. "

John Oliver

Negativity

Positive

You

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Ready

" I'm British; pessimism is my wheelhouse. "

John Oliver

British

Pessimism

" When you've married someone who's been at war, there is nothing you can do that compares to that level of selflessness and bravery. "

" There are so many low points with stand-up. You are perpetually humiliated, so it doesn't really matter anymore. I don't have any dignity left to lose. An audience can't hurt you anymore when you've been completely dismantled. "

" Armando Iannucci is one of my heroes. As I was growing up, he was probably the most influential comic voice that I had. "

" I think Americans still can't help but respond to the natural authority of this voice. Deep down they long to be told what to do by a British accent. That's why so many infomercials have British people. "

" There is so much cross-pollination between the U.S. and Britain in terms of comedians. British TV comedies work well in the U.S. American stand-ups make it big in Britain. "

" It was probably years before I was confident enough in stand-up that I was able to talk about the things I wanted to talk about, the way I wanted to talk about them. "

" 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. "

" I watch one news channel until my soul can't take it anymore. It's the background of my life. "

" You have to do stand-up quite a long time before you learn how to do it well. It was probably years before I was confident enough in stand-up that I was able to talk about the things I wanted to talk about, the way I wanted to talk about them. "

" People are always going to say stupid things, and you're always going to be able to make jokes about that, but it should be the last thing you add in, because it's the easiest thing. "

" We invented words; we'll tell you how they're supposed to sound. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I can't relax. I find vacations problematic. "

" 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. "

" The moment I accept that there's an artistic, redeeming quality in puns, I have a horrible feeling I'll get hooked. "

John Oliver

Quality

Moment

" 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

Happy

" There are two kinds of hecklers: the destructive and constructive hecklers. "