Stephen Colbert's Quotes

You shouldn't listen to us at all if you're looking for information. We don't take ourselves seriously on any level; we're just comedians.

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.

I spent my first two years at a small all-male college in Virginia called Hampden-Sydney. That was like going to college 120 years ago. The languages, a year of rhetoric, all of the great books, Western Man courses, stuff like that.

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.

No, 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.

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.

Isn't an agnostic just an atheist without balls?

Truthiness is tearing apart our country, and I don't mean the argument over who came up with the word. I don't know whether it's a new thing, but it's certainly a current thing, in that it doesn't seem to matter what facts are. It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything.

In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant. One motto on the show is, 'Keep your facts, I'm going with the truth.'

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.

Shamelessness is a wonderful part of the character.

I can't prove it, but I can say it.

I just think Rosa Parks was overrated. Last time I checked, she got famous for breaking the law.

And if you love only yourself, you will serve only yourself. And you will have only yourself.

If I had free time to go to Los Angeles to shoot a movie, I would rather spend it with my kids.

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

I used to make up stuff in my bio all the time, that I used to be a professional ice-skater and stuff like that. I found it so inspirational. Why not make myself cooler than I am?

It used to be, everyone was entitled to their own opinion, but not their own facts. But that's not the case anymore. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything.

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 deliver my Truth hot and hard.

I don't like books, they're all fact, no heart.

I love being onstage.

I wrote things for the school's newspaper, and - like all teenagers - I dabbled in poetry.

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

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

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