John Oliver Quotes

Look, a phrase that gets brought up a lot with regard to Israel is "never again" -- an anti-genocide slogan often invoked in memory of the Holocaust, and it's always been open to two interpretations: there's the one that means "This must never again happen to the Jewish people", and the one that means "This must never again happen to any people anywhere." And in the West Bank, as in Gaza right now, it's pretty clear which one the Israeli government has favored.

John Oliver: You've stated that you believe there could be an infinite number of parallel universes. Does that mean that there is a universe out there where I am smarter than you?
Stephen Hawking: Yes. And also a universe where you're funny.

Whenever they don't want to talk about something, it's probably worth you knowing about it.

But that is the natural endpoint of austerity right there: punishing people for circumstances completely beyond their control. And Sunak is now promising to introduce what he calls the next generation of welfare reforms, including yet more cuts, justifying it by saying, “I worry very much about benefits becoming a lifestyle choice.” Which is a rich fucking statement from a rich fucking man who’d probably go into anaphylactic shock if he ever had to fly coach.

One project leader in the 80s and early 90s is remembered for saying "No secrets" and "The only thing that will make me rip off your head and shit down your neck is withholding information." And I'm sorry, but that should be the mug.

When New Jersey sends us mayors, they're clearly not sending their best.

Congratulations, Dave, you've just constructed a straw man so large you could burn it in the desert and hold an annoying festival around it.

I'm not saying college is the right choice for everyone -- but it should be a choice.

The world's become so horrifying now. It's too easy to become cynical about things and that's not fair and it doesn't work. And in fact, there is hope for the world. And it is in the form of Wikipedia. Now, Wikipedia will save us all. I found this out when recently a friend of mine emailed me and he said that someone had created a Wikipedia entry about me. I didn't realize this was true, so I looked it up. And like most Wikipedia entries, it came with some flamboyant surprises, not least amongst them my name. Because in it it said my name was John Cornelius Oliver. Now my middle name is not Cornelius because I did not die in 1752. But obviously, I want it to be. Cornelius is an incredible name. And that's when it hit me — the way the world is now, fiction has become more attractive than fact. That is why Wikipedia is such a vital resource. It's a way of us completely rewriting our history to give our children and our children's children a much better history to grow up with. We seem to have no intention of providing them with a future. Let's at least give them a past. It is in a very real sense the least we can do.

The fact is, no matter how executions are performed, they'll never be humane. No matter how many times you call them "textbook" or claim it's "much better than anything they did to the victims", or show people viral videos of dizzy tweens on helium, it's never gonna be okay, and we are kidding ourselves if we think taking someone's life actually lowers the number of killers in the world; it literally, definitionally, creates more.

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.

Lots of people are 68, working, and paying taxes, and I’d venture to say most of them are not Nazi enthusiasts, other than, it seems, you and Mel Gibson.

I know I talk a lot on this show about the bad stuff Ronald Reagan did. So to balance that out, I do want to mention something positive he did for the planet. In 2004 – and this is true – he died.

Okay. I don’t usually do this, but I want you to pause this right now, and write down what you think you just saw. I don’t want to do this for you, just write down what you feel you just witnessed there, then come back and I’ll tell you what I think, okay?

I know it is hard to imagine things getting worse on this but to be fair, Trump has always been one to roll up his sleeves, throw on a very unflattering vest, and dig us into a new layer of hell.