John Oliver Quotes

I never really write the jokes. I just sit down over a week or two and try to figure out what I want to talk about. Once I narrow that down, then I start working on the material, like "How do I make this stuff funny?"

I try to write three jokes every day. I don't sit down and write them, it's just things that pop into my head. Then I'll go watch it fail onstage that night.

I'm not as incredibly prolific as Louis C. K., and I'm definitely not doing a completely brand-new hour probably by the beginning of the tour.

It can take a few months to get a new 10 minutes. Usually it takes like 10 times of repeatedly trying different variations of a joke until I land on one I think is really good.

I try to write three jokes every morning, although I don't know what they are. I write them as fast as I can, then I put them away for a month. So I couldn't even tell you what they are, or if they're good. I just assume they weren't.

Usually the beginning of a story that people hear a lot. For example, "My girlfriend is upset about her new haircut" or "My dad keeps losing his car keys." And then I just think of different ways the story could end. "My girlfriend is upset about her new haircut. I don't understand why she's crying. I'm the one who has to get a new girlfriend." Then I try it out on stage. I don't do a lot of re-writing. My jokes either work or they don't. The trick is just to write a ton of jokes.

I just love that part of comedy, where you see somebody's jokes develop. They try something new to see what works, and I just love that part.

Writing your own jokes, you just kind of keep working on something until you think it might work, and then you try it out and hope for the best.

I don't really write jokes down. I tend to have a premise that I work out and test on stage.

I actually credit Twitter with fine-tuning some joke-writing skills. I still feel like I'm working at it.

I found, especially with stand-up, that if a premise works, you can make the joke work. If a premise doesn't work, you can't force it to.

I always felt that it was easier to take a funny person and teach them to write television than to take somebody who was a television writer and make them funny. And I discovered a lot of great writers that went on to do a lot of great shows like 'Seinfeld,' 'Friends,' you know, 'Three and a Half Men.'

I definitely script things out. I definitely write things down and try to write jokes. Often, they're terrible. I often write terrible, terrible jokes.

The ability to workshop in stand-up comedy is incomparable to any art form, in my opinion.

I listened to this interview once with Jerry Seinfeld that really influenced my comedy and all of my writing, which is that when you're starting out in comedy, it's the audience that tells you what's funny about you. And you need to listen to that and make a note of that.

I start a lot more songs than I finish, because I realize when I get into them, they're no good. I don't throw them away, I just put them away, store them, get them out of sight.

There aren't any concrete steps to becoming a comic.

When you are in a room and your job is to write jokes 10 hours a day, your mind starts going to strange places.

You can never really judge your work because once it's done, it's done.

When you finish a record, I look at it like a photograph. It's already taken. You got it the way you wanted it to be. You edit it, make sure the light and contrast are right, then you just put it away, and that's your photograph. Then you don't really think about it anymore.

One percent of all comics ever reach the level of a Chris Rock or a Jerry Seinfeld. When audiences come to the underground rooms, they have a chance to watch the process that happens along the way - and see the comedians grow.

I did so many open mics. I would write jokes on Twitter constantly, and then slowly, over time, open mics turned into shows. If you can get a joke to work at an open mic, it's a good joke.

I don't publish anything I haven't worked over 100 times.

The victory of the show is in the writing. Coming up with sketches and stand-up bits. The rest is just hitting buttons on a machine more or less.

I would be jokesmithing. I had files with tons of disses that I would try to write as I was on the train going to school.