I like being boring to a certain extent. I don't have to be flashy. I get to put all of that into a show, and when it's over, I don't have to be that.
— Stephen Colbert
I have a mug that actually verifies that I'm the world's best dad. That's a mug. That's not me talking. You can't just buy those.
If you don't give power to the words that people throw at you to hurt you, they don't hurt you anymore. And you actually have power over those people.
I do love my country. I don't think I'm particularly a good American. I don't know what makes a good American. Other than somebody who - I like people who let other people alone. I think that's a pretty good American. And I keep my hands to myself. So I'm an OK American.
I would say laughter is the best medicine. But it's more than that. It's an entire regime of antibiotics and steroids. Laughter brings the swelling down on our national psyche and then applies an antibiotic cream. You gotta keep it away from your eyes.
You can't really be passionately moderate. It's like wearing an 'Extra Medium' - it doesn't exist.
I have tender feelings for Nixon because everybody has warm feelings about their childhood. Actually, I didn't like the Watergate trials 'cause they interrupted 'The Munsters.'
Use the word 'zeitgeist' as often as possible. Ideally, you want to find words that sound familiar but people don't really know their definitions: 'zeitgeist,' 'bildungsroman,' 'doppelganger' - better yet, anything Latin. But avoid 'paradigm.' It's so 1994. If you say the word 'paradigm,' everybody knows you're a poser.
I loved George Carlin and Dean Martin. I was one of those kids who had every comedy album.
When I got to 'The Daily Show,' they asked me to have a political opinion. It turned out that I had one, but I didn't realize quite how liberal I was until I was asked to make passionate comedic choices as opposed to necessarily successful comedic choices.
We are thrilled that Jon Batiste is joining 'The Late Show' family of products. For my money, nobody plays like Jon Batiste. And you can trust me, because it is my money.
Simply being a guest on David Letterman's show has been a highlight of my career. I never dreamed that I would follow in his footsteps, though everyone in late night follows Dave's lead. I'm thrilled and grateful that CBS chose me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go grind a gap in my front teeth.
Make no mistake: I love women. I'm married to one, I was birthed by one, and I played one in my high school production of 'Romeo and Juliet.' No one else could fit into the bodice.
There's a degree of narcissism involved in anything in show business. I mean, you can't do it without a healthy ego. Why would you want anybody to listen to you?
I have a morality. I don't know if it's the best morality. And I do like thinking. If people perceive that as a moral intellectualism, that's fine. That's up to them to decide.
Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty.
Thankfully, dreams can change. If we'd all stuck with our first dream, the world would be overrun with cowboys and princesses.
The only thing that I don't like is my kids watching comedy that isn't actually funny. There's a lot of supposed tween comedy on TV that isn't particularly funny, but it's got a lot of laugh track. And I go, 'Please don't watch that. Please just watch something that's actually funny.'
The truthiness is, anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news 'at' you.
I am highly variable in my devotion. From a doctrinal point of view or a dogmatic point of view or a strictly Catholic adherent point of view, I'm first to say that I talk a good game, but I don't know how good I am about it in practice.
I heard that after you throw away a 'New York Times,' it takes over a hundred years for the lies to biodegrade.
I love 'Sunday in the Park with George.' I saw that when I was just, just starting theater school, and I remember singing 'Finishing the Hat' or at least reading the lyrics to 'Finishing the Hat' and other songs from 'Sunday in the Park with George' to my mom to try to explain why I wanted to be an artist.
My father always wanted to be 'Col-bear.' He lived in the same town as his father, and his father didn't like the idea of the name with the French pronunciation. So my father said to us, 'Do what you want. You're not going to offend anybody.' And he was dead long before I made my decision.
I have a doctorate in fine arts from Knox College in Illinois. All I did was give a speech, and now everybody has to call me Dr. Colbert.
In the media age, everybody was famous for 15 minutes. In the Wikipedia age, everybody can be an expert in five minutes. Special bonus: You can edit your own entry to make yourself seem even smarter.
I liked comedy as a kid. When I was a kid, I'd go to sleep to, like, Bill Cosby albums every night. I'd listen to 'Bill Cosby Is A Very Funny Fellow... Right!' and 'Wonderfulness,' which are two of his most famous albums. Then the next night, I'd flip them over, 'cause it was the old stackable turntable.
I'm a junkie for exhaustion, and I'm a junkie for setting up my expectations too high and then trying to meet them.
My favorite off-camera memory of Jon Stewart is watching him jump from the second level of a tuna tower into the waters off Grand Cayman.
I'm not just a pundit - I'm a comedian.
I'm very comfortable with uncomfortable situations, and I think that can seem odd to people, that I like the thrill of discomfort.
Late-night shows are 'Chopped.' Who are your guests tonight? Your guests tonight are veal tongue, coffee grounds and gummy bears. There, make a show ... Make an appetizer that appeals to millions of people. That's what I like. How could you possibly do it? Oh, you bring in your own flavors. Your own house band is another flavor.
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
I don't accept the status quo. I do accept Visa, MasterCard, or American Express.
I not only loved studying theater, I loved being a theater major. It gave me an excuse to brood, to grow a beard, to wear black 'at' people. I didn't just want to play Hamlet, I wanted to be Hamlet.
That's my parenting style - 'Go watch the TV.' I'm one of 11 children, and my mother's parenting style was, 'There's the TV. Go watch it. Mommy's got 10 other people to take care of.'
I'm a simple man with a simple mind. I hold a simple set of beliefs that I live by. Number one, I believe in America. I believe it exists. My gut tells me I live there. I feel that it extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and I strongly believe it has 50 states.
The letters that say 'I'm getting the messages you're sending me through the television screen' are not great. But those are few and far between, thank God. I get wonderful letters, and people send me artwork.
When my car runs out of gas, I buy a new one. I don't want to ride around in a quitter.
I don't perceive my role as a newsman at all. I'm a comedian from stem to stern. You can cut me open and count the rings of jokes.
I started as a straight actor. I'd go onstage, and I'd think, 'Wow, this is the only thing I want to work really hard at. I will rehearse fifty times on a single scene; I don't care - I'll do it again.'
Don't be afraid to make things up. Never fear being exposed as a fraud. Experts make things up all the time. They're qualified to.
Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the furthest thing from it. Because cynics don't learn anything. Because cynicism is a self-imposed blindness: a rejection of the world because we are afraid it will hurt us or disappoint us. Cynics always say 'no.' But saying 'yes' begins things. Saying 'yes' is how things grow.
Who really wants to be themselves when they're teenagers?
I started off at the Second City in Chicago... It's an improvisational theater that ostensibly does social and political satire, but when I was there, we generally didn't. We did character work, and we did just the silliest things we could think of. We weren't all that concerned with, you know, changing the world through mime.
The first time I met Jon Stewart was at the press conference that Comedy Central held to announce Jon would be the new host of 'The Daily Show,' which back then was not called 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.'
I believe gender is a spectrum, and I fall somewhere between Channing Tatum and Winnie the Pooh.
I look, absolutely, like I'm going to sell you insurance.
I like to do things that are publicly embarrassing, to feel the embarrassment touch me and sink into me and then be gone. I like getting on elevators and singing too loudly in that small space. The feeling you feel is almost like a vapor. The discomfort and the wishing that it would end that comes around you.
What the right-wing in the United States tries to do is undermine the press.
If you love friends, you will serve your friends. If you love community, you will serve your community. If you love money, you will serve your money. And if you love only yourself, you will serve only yourself. And you will have only yourself.
