Status is always ripe for satire, status is always good for comedy.
I loved George Carlin and Dean Martin. I was one of those kids who had every comedy album.
If I had a dime for everytime that I was wrong, I'd be broke.
Isn't an agnostic just an atheist without balls?
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.
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.
In order to be a top-tier candidate, I need 7.5 million dollars, and I currently have 0.0 million dollars.
Who really wants to be themselves when they're teenagers?
I used to write things for friends. There was this girl I had a crush on, and she had a teacher she didn't like at school. I had a real crush on her, so almost every day I would write her a little short story where she would kill him in a different way.
My brother Billy was the joke teller. My brother Jim had a really sharp, cutting wit. And the teller of long stories, that was my brother Ed. As a child, I just absorbed everything they said, and I was always in competition for the laughs.
Shamelessness is a wonderful part of the character.
The interesting thing about grief, I think, is that it is its own size. It is not the size of you. It is its own size. And grief comes to you.
I'm a junkie for exhaustion, and I'm a junkie for setting up my expectations too high and then trying to meet them.
When the president decides something on Monday, he still believes it on Wednesday – no matter what happened Tuesday.
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.
My mom kind of led me toward acting. She wanted to be an actress when she was younger. That made me interested in it when I was a kid, because she and I are very close.
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.
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 be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise.
The truthiness is, anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news 'at' you.
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'm a satirist, so I've got boxing gloves on if the person is worthy of satire. But I'm not an assassin. If that ever happens, it's only because something happened during the interview that got me going, and then I had to translate my feelings to the mouth of the character.
Contraception leads to more babies being born out of wedlock, like fire extinguishers lead to more fires.
I look, absolutely, like I'm going to sell you insurance.
Thankfully, dreams can change. If we'd all stuck with our first dream, the world would be overrun with cowboys and princesses.
All I can do is today and tomorrow and have some idea of what we're doing next week. That's all I can worry about.
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 don't like books, they're all fact, no heart.
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.
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'm not just a pundit - I'm a comedian.
I always recommend people get in trouble. Commit yourself to an open mike night or write something and say you're going to read it in public, but get in trouble. You're never going to learn until you fail. … You have to go out there and figure out what you can do and can't do.
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.
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.
Northwestern's alumni list is truly impressive. This university has graduated best-selling authors, Olympians, presidential candidates, Grammy winners, Peabody winners, Emmy winners, and that's just me!
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 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.
I believe gender is a spectrum, and I fall somewhere between Channing Tatum and Winnie the Pooh.
There's nothing wrong with being gay. I have plenty of friends who are going to hell.
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.
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.
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.
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.'
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.
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.
I'm very comfortable with uncomfortable situations, and I think that can seem odd to people, that I like the thrill of discomfort.
What the right-wing in the United States tries to do is undermine the press.
I'm an actor. I hate to blow everyone's illusions.
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.
