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" My family is from Liverpool, so I have some of those vowel sounds, I've got the slack tone of someone from Birmingham, and then I was raised in Bedford, which is just north of London. So my accent, if it's possible, makes even less sense to a Brit than to an American. "

John Oliver

Family

Possible

Someone

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" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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 really love stand-up. I'm more than happy to do it for nothing. I've come to America to do it for nothing. It's the American Dream: Work for free. "

" I feel more at home knowing I'm not really at home. It takes all the pressure off you trying to fit in! "

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Pressure

Trying

" 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. "

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" Politicians don't really bring up religion in England. "

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Bring

Politicians

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

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Quality

Moment

" A Southern accent is not a club in my bag. "

" 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. "

" 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. "

" I feel non-stop Brit shame! "

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" I'm British, so obviously I repress any powerful emotions of any kind in relation to anything. "

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" I find it hard in my general life to think further than the week ahead. "

" 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. "

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Beast

You

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" 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. "

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John Oliver

Know

Ready

" Southern people are bigger-hearted and kinder than I had any right to expect. "