Stephen Colbert Quotes

My grandfather did not travel across 4,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean to see this country overrun by immigrants. He did it because he killed a man back in Ireland.

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.

Attack life, it's going to kill you anyway.

Thankfully dreams can change. If we'd all stuck with our first dream, the world would be overrun with cowboys and princesses. So whatever your dream is right now, if you don't achieve it, you haven't failed and you're not some loser-but just as importantly-if you do get your dream, you're not a winner.

Status is always ripe for satire, status is always good for comedy.

Once I'm performing the show, I think that hour show has a certain intimacy with our audience. And that intimacy is through the lens and the live audience is a witness to that, whereas the audience at home is actually the object of my efforts.

The worst thing about affirmative action is that it encourages reverse discrimination, so-called because it goes in the opposite way of how we naturally discriminate.

Science attacks our most cherished opinions. Opinions which come straight from our collective gut. Oh, wait, according to gastroenterologists, the only thing that comes from the gut is waste left from the digestion of food. That’s right, “waste.” I guess that means that scientists literally think our opinions should be flushed down the toilet!

I'm a satirist, so I've got boxing gloves on if the person is worthy of satire. But I'm not an assassin.

Researchers from Britain's Keele University have found that swearing after an injury may help alleviate pain. Evidently, the pain that you feel is inversely proportional to the number of middle names you give Jesus.

Like O'Rielly, we'll grab the most important word of each sentence... 'The' for example. Also, I'll say, 'I'm angry,' and the graphic will read, 'Colbert angry.

I am down with the latest trends. And everyone knows, the thing on the streets is vampires. So I have been biting people on the neck.

I'm a huge news junkie. I love what the news does.

Here's how it works: the president makes decisions. He's the decider. The press secretary announces those decisions, and you people of the press type those decisions down. Make, announce, type. Just put 'em through a spell check and go home. The greatest thing about this man is he's steady. You know where he stands. He believes the same thing Wednesday that he believed on Monday, no matter what happened Tuesday. Events can change; this man's beliefs never will.

There's nothing wrong with being gay. I have plenty of friends who are going to hell.

There's a wonderfully cooperative relationship between management and labor right now. Much like the historic partnership between oranges and a juicer.

Used books are the sluts of the literary world. Passed around from person to person, spreading their pages for anyone, getting cheaper and cheaper until eventually they end up in prison.

I'd forgotten what an honest sandwich it is. For those of you not familiar, 'BLT' stands for 'bacon, lettuce, and tomato.' A lot of people think the 'B' stands for 'bread,' and I can understand someone not wanting a lettuce and tomato sandwich. But, the bread is implied in the word 'sandwich.' Anyway, it's an American original. Everyone should have a BLT as soon as they can.

If I ever succumbed to the demon on my shoulder going, "You should get something special because you're famous," that is the moment that my behavior will be caught on social media for all time. I'm even afraid to use it to get a reservation. This is the person who will tweet, "Can you believe what this a-hole did?"

I deliver my Truth hot and hard.

I'm not here to affect you politically or socially. I'm here to make you laugh. I use the news as the palette for my jokes.

Take it from me, there's nothing like a job well done, except the quiet enveloping darkness at the bottom of a bottle of Jim Beam after a job done any way at all.

It is a well known fact that reality has liberal bias.

A new study shows that having a severe phobia can hasten aging. But what if my greatest fear IS aging?!?

I love making observations. That one is a classic example.

You've gotta understand what Putin's strategy is. He really doesn't like democracy. He thinks it's an inconvenient, messy process. And he doesn't like us, and he wants to destabilize our country; sow doubt about our democracy.

And though I am a committed Christian, I believe everyone has the right to their own religion - be you Hindu, Jewish, or Muslim, I believe there are infinite paths to accepting Jesus Christ as your personal savior.

The trouble with the jokes is that once they're written, I know how they're supposed to work, and all I can do is not hit them. I'm more comfortable improvising. If I have just two or three ideas and I know how the character feels, what the character wants, everything in between is like trapeze work.

Don’t get me wrong. Being a mom is no picnic. Raising the kids is the mother’s responsibility. It’s a thankless, solitary job, like sheriff or Pope.

Remember, Jesus would rather constantly shame gays than let orphans have a family.

The summer movies are coming out. My advice: just stay home and burn a good book.

Nothing is more vintage than dying of Rubella.

Don't cry over spilled milk. By this time tomorrow, it'll be free yogurt.

What are the origins of dressage? Did just, one day, some young horse say to his dad, 'Dad, I don't want to charge into battle...I just wanna dance'?

The shamrock is a religious symbol. St. Patrick said the leaves represented the trinity: the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. That's why four leaf clovers are so lucky, you get a bonus Jesus.

We are the shadow cast by real people. And that shadow changes shape as the news cycle changes shape, so you always have fresh dirt to dig in.

This is America. I don't want a tomato picked by a Mexican. I want it picked by an American, then sliced by a Guatemalan and served by a Venezuelan in a spa where a Chilean gives me a Brazilian.

The way to a man's heart is through his stomach...just make sure you thrust upward through his ribcage.

With Late Night Show I can begin the search for the real Stephen Colbert.I just hope I don't find him on Ashley Madison.

America cannot afford a rally to restore sanity in the middle of a recession. Did you even consider how many panic-related jobs that might cost us in the fear-industrial complex?

I won't be doing the new show in character, so we'll all get to find out how much of him was me. I'm looking forward to it.

Don't be bitter. Everybody suffers. If you can accept your suffering then you will understand other people better. Be grateful for pain. Love life.

To all the worryworts out there who said super PACs were going to lead to a cabal of billionaires secretly buying democracy: wrong! They are publicly buying democracy.

There is a residual sense for me, having grown up in the early '70s, that I did not know I had, which was a sense that the military are different than I. Because there was such a divide between the military world - and there still is, because there's no draft - and the civilian world is one of the rotten harvests of the Vietnam War, was this sort of bifurcation of America in that way.

I'm an actor. I hate to blow everyone's illusions.

Twenty-two astronauts were born in Ohio. What is it about your state that makes people want to flee the Earth?" - Stephen Colbert to Congresswoman Stephanie Tubbs Jones, "The Colbert Report," November 3, 2005

I've long been against illegal aliens, partly because they distract us from an even bigger threat: real aliens.

It's time for me to give out an award to newly elected Majority Leader John Boehner. Mr. Boehner was elected just a few days ago to reform House Republicans, who are feeling the heat from lobbyist scandals. Well, CNN found out that he rents his two-bedroom apartment from a lobbyist who had clients who had interests in legislation that Boehner sponsored. And for that, Mr. Boehner, you've just won a pair of Stephen Colbert's big brass balls.