I'm not really much of an actor, so when I started on 'The Daily Show', I was just trying to adopt the faux authority of a newsperson.
I'm not really much of an actor, so when I started on 'The Daily Show,' I was just trying to adopt the faux authority of a newsperson. Having a British accent definitely gave me a sonic leg up on that because there is a faux authority to the British accent in and of itself.
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.
Congress never loses its capacity to disappoint you.
The disconnect between America and its military is shocking.
Every empire has to get sucked down the drain. As a British person, I know how it feels.
People are always going to say stupid things, and you're always going to be able to make jokes about that, but it should be the last thing you add in, because it's the easiest thing.
Sometimes it's good to remember how bad food can be, so you can enjoy the concept of flavour to the fullest.
I know I'd be an absolutely horrendous politician.
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.
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.
I've said yes to everything that Jon Stewart has asked me to do. That's been a pretty good career decision, I think.
If I wanted to take a more activist or journalistic slant in work, I should probably just go be an activist or a journalist. But I'm happy being a comedian.
Southern people are bigger-hearted and kinder than I had any right to expect.
Being a Mets fan is like lending someone a lot of money and you just know that you'll never get paid back.
It's pretty physically unsettling, living life on a visa.
I think puns are not just the lowest form of wit, but the lowest form of human behavior.
People really have come for a dialogue when they go to a stand-up show in the U.K. They say, 'I understand that you have now finished your little comedy monologue; now I have something to say regarding what I've just heard.
Politics has become infused with narcissism in America.
I get nostalgic for British negativity. There is an inherent hope and positive drive to New Yorkers. When you go back to Britain, everybody is just running everything down. It's like whatever the opposite of a hug is.