Top 100 Colbert's Quotes
#1. My mother used to paper pictures from movie magazines on the wall of her bedroom. When I was born, she looked at those pictures to decide on a name for me. Claudette Colbert's picture was up there and so was Loretta Young's. She decided Loretta was the prettiest name, so I was named after her.
Loretta Lynn
#2. Some people perceive me as an assassin or at least someone who can slip under your guard with a knife. But if you watch what I do, that's almost never the case. I'm just trying to keep the balloon in the air. It rarely turns into anything combative.
Stephen Colbert
#3. 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.
Stephen Colbert
#5. A press that has validity is a press that has authority. And as soon as there's any authority to what the press says, you question the authority of the government - it's like the existence of another authority.
Stephen Colbert
#6. 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!
Stephen Colbert
#7. The fate of our country is now in the hands of people who don't think about what they want until they get right up to the register at McDonald's.
Stephen Colbert
#8. Yeah, Silver and his math are jokes, because math has a liberal bias. After all, math is the reason Mitt Romney's tax plan doesn't add up.
Stephen Colbert
#9. It's hard to swallow your pride. That's why I slather mine in mayonnaise.
Stephen Colbert
#10. History moves fast. It's hard to believe that gay Americans achieved full constitutional personhood just five years after corporations did!
Stephen Colbert
#11. It's lamented that the youth get their news from Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. It's lamentable that they get more from them than from the news.
Dick Cavett
#12. Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty.
Stephen Colbert
#13. I know that the pope's infallible, but that doesn't mean he can't make mistakes.
Stephen Colbert
#14. There's nothing wrong with being gay. I have plenty of friends who are going to hell.
Stephen Colbert
#15. I just want to do things that scratch an itch for me. That itch is often something that feels wrong. It's wrong because it breaks convention or is unexpected or at times uncomfortable. I like that feeling.
Stephen Colbert
#16. First, [in high school], I smoked a lot of pot ... and that's how I got to know the people 'half in' the society of my high school and we waved at each other over the bong. Then I got to know people by making jokes.
Stephen Colbert
#17. Why even dictate?
Well, like a lot of other dictators, there's one man's opinion I value above all others. Mine.
Stephen Colbert
#18. My imagination has always been inspired by nature's vision
Gregory Colbert
#19. Citizens United said that transparency would be the disinfectant, but (c)(4)'s are warm, wet, moist incubators. There is no disinfectant.
Stephen Colbert
#20. Like all great theologies, Bill [O'Reilly]'s can be boiled down to one sentence: There must be a god, because I don't know how things work.
Stephen Colbert
#21. The way to a man's heart is through his stomach ... just make sure you thrust upward through his ribcage.
Stephen Colbert
#22. God works in mysterious ways but at least he works, he's never on welfare in a mysterious way.
Stephen Colbert
#23. It's back to school time. or as home-schoolers call it, stay-where-you-are time.
Stephen Colbert
#24. Stephen Colbert has such a loyal following; I don't know if it's the same with Jay Leno; he really inspires love in people, and there can be a lucky ricochet of that for some people.
Lisa Hannigan
#25. Obamacare needs the premiums of healthier people to cover the costs of sicker people. It's a devious con that can only be described as insurance.
Stephen Colbert
#26. As Shakespeare said, there's nothin' cooler than droppin' the 'g's off of gerunds!
Stephen Colbert
#27. 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.
Stephen Colbert
#28. Contrary to what people may say, there's no upper limit to stupidity.
Stephen Colbert
#29. Now I don't know why he's denying them habeas corpus. I can only assume the guys they got detained over there did something really unforgivable. Like remind Obama he was once a professor of Constitutional Law.
Stephen Colbert
#30. Comedians dissect jokes all the time. Comedians are beautiful structuralists. But ultimately it's an athletic endeavor.
Stephen Colbert
#31. Who's Britannica to tell me that the Panama Canal was built in 1914? If I want to say that it was built in 1941, that's my right as an American.
Stephen Colbert
#32. We have this idea in our minds that there's this separation of church and state in America, which I think is a good thing. And we extend that to our politics - not just church and state, but it's also there's a separation of religion and politics. But of course there isn't.
Stephen Colbert
#33. And of course I don't go anywhere without my pet goldfish, Anthrax. I always tell security I'm carrying Anthrax. Yeah, sure I get a lot of guff about it, but it's a family name; I'm not changing it.
Stephen Colbert
#34. We claim no respectability. There's no status I would not surrender for a joke. So we don't have to defend anything.
Stephen Colbert
#35. Life is an improvisation. You have no idea what's going to happen next and you are mostly just making things up as you go along.
Stephen Colbert
#36. Am I proud of being straight? No. You know why? Because if I start acting proud, that's going to make me seem kind of gay.
Stephen Colbert
#37. You CAN make an omelette without breaking eggs. It's just a really bad omelette.
Stephen Colbert
#38. Pain is the body's way of telling the brain it's in trouble. Similarly, confusion is the brain's way of telling the body, 'All right, buddy, drop that book.
Stephen Colbert
#39. I'm not a truthiness fanatic, I'm truthiness's father.
Stephen Colbert
#40. 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.
Stephen Colbert
#41. Washington is dangerously positioned between two Canadas, Canada Canada and California's Canada, Oregon.
Stephen Colbert
#42. F**k them is what I say. I hate those ebooks. They can not be the future. They may well be. I will be dead. I won't give a s**t.
Maurice Sendak
#43. It's official. Highway patrolmen are not susceptible to the Jedi Mind Trick.
Stephen Colbert
#44. I must confess that I've never trusted the Web. I've always seen it as a coward's tool. Where does it live? How do you hold it personally responsible? Can you put a distributed network of fiber-optic cable "on notice"? And is it male or female? In other words, can I challenge it to a fight?
Stephen Colbert
#45. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, a family is defined as two or more people living together who are related by birth, marriage or adoption. In other words, the U.S. Census Bureau is run by radical leftists. Why do you think there's a whole category for the unemployed?
Stephen Colbert
#46. She taught me to be grateful for my life regardless of what that entailed, and that's directly related to the image of Christ on the cross and the example of sacrifice that he gave us." But the Stephen Colbert who speaks
Bruce Watson
#47. Divorce is marital welfare.It's just couples asking society to bail them out because they didn't do enough research before they got married.
Stephen Colbert
#48. That's what's great about America: that our freedom of religion allows me to interpret the Bible exactly how it fits my worldview already.
Stephen Colbert
#49. That's why our TVs are brimming with so much hot man-on-pan action. You can't channel surf for long without seeing turkey getting stuffed over and over until they finally cut to the gravy shot.
Stephen Colbert
#50. 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?
Stephen Colbert
#51. Stephen Colbert used to be my friend. I even signed the poor baby's cast when he hurt his hand.
Nancy Pelosi
#52. Even the weather page is in a state of moral decay. What?s wrong with red, white and blue, USA Today? This rainbow weather map is just another example of the homometerological agenda.
Stephen Colbert
#53. It's no surprise I am addicted to all the Republican presidential candidates. They are like crack
in that they will devastate black communities.
Stephen Colbert
#54. There's always been some concern that adult subject matter should be quarantined from a page that attracts children. Unlike late at night, when 'South Park' and 'Colbert' are on, impressionable minds are wide awake when the newspaper arrives.
Garry Trudeau
#55. Here's an easy way to figure out if you're in a cult: If you're wondering whether you're in a cult, the answer is yes.
Stephen Colbert
#56. 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.
Stephen Colbert
#57. 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
#59. I still can't believe that I went on 'The Colbert Report' myself; for the appearance I wore a lot of makeup, my hair was curled like a poodle's, and I could barely breathe in my Spanx undergarments. But, hey - an authoress has to lean in, right?
Edan Lepucki
#60. I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving. Or, as it's known to Native Americans - Sarcastic You're Welcomesgiving.
Stephen Colbert
#61. There's nothing more I love than McDonald's dollar menu. With just the change I find between my couch cushions, I can eat something with the nutritional value of a couch cushion.
Stephen Colbert
#62. Naturally the U.S. trails in gold medals because every time we win one, we hand it over to the Chinese to pay off our debt.
Stephen Colbert
#63. Divorce is a marital welfare. It's just couples asking society to bail them out because they didn't do enough research before they got married. How is that our fault? Don't drag down my country's statistics just because you ran off and got hitched before you ever saw each other in a bad mood.
Stephen Colbert
#64. The only thing that gets me high is the musky scent of my enemy's fear
Stephen Colbert
#66. No one has any idea what's going to happen. Not even Elon Musk. That's why he's building those rockets. He wants a 'Plan B' on another world.
Stephen Colbert
#67. Take away the Big Bang and what has God done? Burned a bush and got a girl pregnant. Great, he's a high school junior.
Stephen Colbert
#68. 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.
Stephen Colbert
#69. 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.
Stephen Colbert
#71. Vodka eyeballing sounds great, but it's a
slippery slope. Next, you'll be scotch nostriling, tequila nippling and,
before you know it, Jager tainting.
Stephen Colbert
#72. Thank God for Occupy and thank God for 'The Daily Show,' Colbert and the rising up that's going on around the world.
Bonnie Raitt
#73. You can't really be passionately moderate. It's like wearing an 'Extra Medium' - it doesn't exist.
Stephen Colbert
#74. All Dogs Go To Heaven? Sorry, kids. It's only the dogs who've accepted Christ.
Stephen Colbert
#75. Other people's deconstruction of your motivations doesn't help you do what you do. You can't swallow and think about swallowing at the same time.
Stephen Colbert
#76. I am no fan of books. And chances are, if you're reading this, you and I share a healthy skepticism about the printed word. Well, I want you to know that this is the first book I've ever written, and I hope it's the first book you've ever read. Don't make a habit of it.
Stephen Colbert
#77. I gut check my show. I say, I say, "Gut, gut, does that feel true to you?" And Gut says, "Yes it does, Stephen. Let's get a grilled cheese sandwich."
Stephen Colbert
#78. When I read books it's to escape. It's so I don't have to talk to people.
Stephen Colbert
#79. It's August, which means Congress is on recess and Mitch McConnell has shimmied back into the ocean to seek a mate.
Stephen Colbert
#80. Morris Weissman [on the phone, discussing casting for his movie]: What about Claudette Colbert? She's British, isn't she? She sounds British. Is she, like, affected or is she British?
Julian Fellowes
#81. There's a wonderfully cooperative relationship between management and labor right now. Much like the historic partnership between oranges and a juicer.
Stephen Colbert
#82. 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.
Stephen Colbert
#83. Now, for my younger viewers out there, a book is something we used to have before the internet. It's sort of a blog for people with attention spans.
Stephen Colbert
#84. You seem cynical because you're always talking about that selfish behavior that's dressed up as altruism. It doesn't mean there isn't altruism. It just means that it's harder to make jokes about altruism.
Stephen Colbert
#85. If you look at Paleolithic cave paintings, you see how people were depicted inside nature, not outside it. It was a kind of dream time. That's what I'm exploring.
Gregory Colbert
#86. I've said it before: equations are the devil's sentences. The worst one is that quadratic equation, an infernal salad of numbers, letters, and symbols.
Stephen Colbert
#87. 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.
Stephen Colbert
#88. You can't swallow and think about your tongue. If you think about your tongue, you've got a giant piece of meat in your mouth and that's a terrible feeling.
Stephen Colbert
#91. Truthiness is "What I say is right, and [nothing] anyone else says could possibly be true." It's not only that I feel it to be true, but that I feel it to be true. There's not only an emotional quality, but there's a selfish quality.
Stephen Colbert
#92. I believe all God's creatures have a soul ... except bears, bears are Godless killing machines!
Stephen Colbert
#93. Good satire goes beyond the specific point it's trying to make and teaches you how to think critically. Even after your favorite cartoonist retires or [Stephen] Colbert wraps it up, you're not left believing everything they're telling you.
Aaron McGruder
#94. Any religion whose messiah's name
isn't recognized by Microsoft Word can't be that much of
a threat.
Stephen Colbert
#95. I love the earth. If you ask me it's the greatest planet in the world.
Stephen Colbert
#96. If you repeat it, it's true. If you repeat it, it's true. And through repetition, something becomes true. If you repeat it enough. Until it becomes true. Or do I need to repeat that for you?
Stephen Colbert
#97. This is America. We must defend the principles symbolized by Lady Liberty - unless she's on the pill, in which case, she is a giant green tramp.
Stephen Colbert
#98. If you imitate someone, you owe them a royalty check. If you emulate them, you don't. There's a big difference. Check your lawyer.
Stephen Colbert
#100. 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.
Stephen Colbert
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