Top 100 John Oliver Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “Do you know how hard it is to kill 30 million people? It’s a logistical nightmare.”

— John Oliver

2. “Pumpkin spice lattes are egg nog for morning people.”

— John Oliver

3. “Democracy is like a tambourine, not everyone can be trusted with it.”

— John Oliver

4. “You don’t need people’s opinion on a fact. You might as well have a poll asking: ‘Which number is bigger, 15 or 5?’ or ‘Do owls exist?’ or ‘Are there hats?’”

— John Oliver

5. “I think puns are not just the lowest form of wit, but the lowest form of human behavior.”

— John Oliver

6. “When you’re dealing with serious subjects, there is a pressure to be absolutely sure that you know what you’re doing.”

— John Oliver

7. “Economics is like the Dutch language – I’m told it makes sense, but I have my doubts.”

— John Oliver

8. “You don’t need people’s opinion on a fact.”

— John Oliver

9. “I’m British; pessimism is my wheelhouse.”

— John Oliver

10. “I’m British, so obviously I repress any powerful emotions of any kind in relation to anything.”

— John Oliver

11. “It’s a great time to be doing political satire when the world is on a knife edge.”

— John Oliver

12. “We invented words; we’ll tell you how they’re supposed to sound.”

— John Oliver

13. “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.”

— John Oliver

14. “If you want to do something evil, put it inside something boring. Apple could put the entire text of “Mein Kampf” inside the iTunes user agreement, and you’d just go agree, agree, agree – what? – agree, agree.”

— John Oliver

15. “One thing that America is objectively exceptional at is overreacting whenever anyone accuses them of not being exceptional.”

— John Oliver

16. “Once you learn how to make people laugh, then you get to choose exactly how you want to make them laugh.”

— John Oliver

17. “I watch one news channel until my soul can’t take it anymore. It’s the background of my life.”

— John Oliver

18. “The Confederate flag is one of those things that should only be seen on t-shirts, belt buckles and bumper stickers to help the rest of us identify the worst people in the world.”

— John Oliver

19. “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

20. “There is no greater anesthetic than sport.”

— John Oliver

21. “If your name is Sepp, at the bare minimum you’ve strangled someone in a bar fight.”

— John Oliver

22. “British people would die for their right to drink themselves to death.”

— John Oliver

23. “Here in America, people come out to see what they’ve known you to do. In England, it’s like everyone comes out to tell you exactly how well they think you’re doing.”

— John Oliver

24. “Congratulations, Congress! 77% disapproval rating! You may be about to become the English language’s most offensive C-word.”

— John Oliver

25. “I can’t relax. I find vacations problematic.”

— John Oliver

26. “There are some people who watch NASCAR for the highly skilled driving – but most people watch it for the crashes.”

— John Oliver

27. “When you do stand-up, you’re just concerned with trying to leave with some semblance of human dignity at the end of your performance.”

— John Oliver

28. “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.”

— John Oliver

29. “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.”

— John Oliver

30. “Stand-up comedy seems like a terrifying thing. Objectively. Before anyone has done it, it seems like one of the most frightening things you could conceive, and there’s just no shortcut – you just have to do it.”

— John Oliver

31. “Net neutrality: The only two words that promise more boredom in the English language are ‘featuring Sting,’”

— John Oliver

32. “If you want to do something evil, put it inside something boring.”

— John Oliver

33. “Being a Mets fan is like lending someone a lot of money and you just know that you’ll never get paid back.”

— John Oliver

34. “Iran is the middle child of the Axis of Evil. Iraq is the oldest child and gets the lion’s share of the attention, and North Korea is the crazy baby.”

— John Oliver

35. “The German language is so sonorous, isn’t it? Beautiful language... the language of poetry. Angry, angry poetry.”

— John Oliver

36. “While skepticism is healthy, cynicism, real cynicism, is toxic.”

— John Oliver

37. “Politics has become infused with narcissism in America.”

— John Oliver

38. “The poverty line is like the age of consent: if you find yourself parsing exactly where it is, you’ve probably already done something very, very wrong.”

— John Oliver

39. “Mr. President, no one is saying you broke any laws, we’re just saying it’s a little bit weird you didn’t have to.”

— John Oliver

40. “I think I’m just a summer fling that people will soon forget.”

— John Oliver

41. “I think being an outsider in general always helps you in comedy. I think it helps to have an outsider’s eye. And so I have an outsider’s voice. You know, as soon as I start talking, I don’t belong here. And I think that helps in a way.”

— John Oliver

42. “News is not a game show. You don’t win a car if you happen to be right.”

— John Oliver

43. “Welcome to The Daily Show, I’m John Oliver. Jon Stewart is still not here. He is currently living out a live-action Lord of the Rings role-playing experience deep in the New Zealand wilderness.”

— John Oliver

44. “I think it might honestly be time for the Sunshine State to officially change its motto to the Worst State.”

— John Oliver

45. “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

46. “Americans just don’t understand dry wit.”

— John Oliver

47. “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.”

— John Oliver

48. “Sometimes it’s good to remember how bad food can be, so you can enjoy the concept of flavour to the fullest.”

— John Oliver

49. “Attending a Sarah Palin rally was simultaneously one of the strangest and most chilling events of my life.”

— John Oliver

50. “The British media is sinking down, as the American news media has lowered the bar for all of humanity. British news media is definitely trying to stoop down to that level. Everyone is stooping to the lowest common denominator.”

— John Oliver