Funny John Oliver quotes

I'm really white. I'm English white, that's basically turbo white. My skin is borderline translucent. If I'm standing, and the sun is behind me, I'm a functioning x-ray.

I see that no one, yet, is filming this on their cell phones. I appreciate that because that has become the new scourge of stand-up: people sitting there saying, 'I want to enjoy this, but now is not good for me. Later would be better -- later and smaller.'

Everyone has seen their dad's penis. Yes, you have. Don't do this to me, New York. Yes, you have. Yes, you have. You have seen your dad's penis. Oh, right. Raise your hands if you've seen your dad's penis. You are fucking lying to me! How am I, as a British person, the least repressed human being in this room?!

Every time I come back to New York, I feel like Rutger Hauer at the end of Blade Runner: 'I've seen things you people wouldn't believe.' I have been to the upper peninsula of Michigan. That is remote in the extreme. It's like Lord of the Flies up there, with significantly more beards.

Democracy is like a tambourine: not everyone can be trusted with it.

It cannot be easy being a Muslim in America at the moment.... For instance, there are some people in America that cannot tell the difference between Muslims -- of which there are hundreds of millions -- and terrorists. Now, just think for a second about quite how offensive that is. That's like if the Muslim world could not differentiate between American people and professional baseball players.

Six months ago, in Saudi Arabia, a suicide bomber managed to get close to a Saudi prince. And he did this by hiding a bomb inside him; he managed to get explosives and a detonator inside his anus. And he detonated that bomb, killing nobody -- apart from himself -- a lot. When I first heard that story, my instinctive reaction was, that is definitely the world's greatest missed opportunity for a pull my finger joke.

I think the best analogy for where we are right now is that America is Elvis Presley -- the most beautiful, talented, rebellious nation in the history of Earth. And now, you're in your Vegas years. You've squeezed yourself into a white jumpsuit, you're wheezing your way through 'Love Me Tender' and you might be about to pass away bloated on the toilet. But you're still the King.

Thirty-six percent of Americans say that they've heard the voice of God. It's not clear of that 36% how many people are mistaking the voice of God for the voice of Morgan Freeman. That's an easy mistake to make.

Campaign ads are the backbone of American democracy -- if American democracy suffered a gigantic spinal injury.

It's pure Americana. It couldn't be any more folksy or wholesome unless Huckleberry Finn suddenly walked in carrying a freshly baked apple pie and started dropping the n-word.

My ideal groupie would be quite emotionally distant…

Let me make one thing perfectly clear to you: this is not writing. I have absolutely no idea how this sentence I’m currently saying is going to finish. When and if it does, I can only hope it makes some kind of coherent ceramic pineapple.