Stephen Colbert quotes:

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!

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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.'

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 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.

Thankfully, dreams can change. If we'd all stuck with our first dream, the world would be overrun with cowboys and princesses.

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.

I deliver my Truth hot and hard.

When my car runs out of gas, I buy a new one. I don't want to ride around in a quitter.

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.

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.

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 love being onstage. I love the relationship with the audience. I love the letting go, the sense of discovery, the improvising.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

I'm a junkie for exhaustion, and I'm a junkie for setting up my expectations too high and then trying to meet them.

I look, absolutely, like I'm going to sell you insurance.

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?

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

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

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.'

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

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.

A father has to be a provider, a teacher, a role model, but most importantly, a distant authority figure who can never be pleased. Otherwise, how will children ever understand the concept of God?

You can't spell parentry without try. Of course, you'll make a few mistakes. The important thing is that the mistakes you make with your kids are the same ones your parents made with you. At least you know how those turn out.

If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it.

Librarians hoard the wisdom of humanity. They are the keepers of all knowledge, the guardians at the temples of understanding and devoted protectors of the sanctuary in the midst of uneducated anarchy.

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.

Brb, ttyl ok? wow, i saved a 'ton' of time with those acronyms.

Contraception leads to more babies being born out of wedlock, like fire extinguishers lead to more fires.

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."

If this is going to be a Christian nation that doesn't help the poor, either we have to pretend that Jesus was just as selfish as we are, or we've got to acknowledge that He commanded us to love the poor and serve the needy without condition and then admit that we just don't want to do it."

Throughout human history, countries rise and fall. But not America--we continue to rise and rise, like dough, until Jesus bakes us in the fiery Afterscape of the Rapture."

Who would have thought that a means of communication limited to 140 characters would ever create misunderstandin g.

I stand by this man (President George W. Bush). I stand by this man because he stands for things. Not only for things, he stands on things. Things like aircraft carriers and rubble and recently flooded city squares. And that sends a strong message, that no matter what happens to America, she will always rebound.. with the most powerfully staged photo ops in the world.

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.

I would say laughter is the best medicine. But it's more than that. It's an entire regime of antibiotics and steroids.

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

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.

Cameras are dangerous. With no waiting period or background check, any whack-job could just stroll into a Wal-Mart and walk out with a semi-automatic. Now, for years I've been pressing for stricter regulations on cameras, especially around our elected officials. Too many political lives have been cut short by some crazed shooter.

Take the platypus - that is not a finished product. It is clearly still in beta.

Making a better tomorrow, tomorrow.

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.

Hatemongers like Media Matters take innocent statements like mine, Rush Limbaugh's, John Gibson's, and Bill O'Reilly's and make them offensive by posting them on the Internet, allowing the general public to hear words that were meant for people who already agree with us. Hey, Media Matters, you want to end offensive speech? Then stop recording it for people who would be offended.

I thought Black Friday was when everyone puts on blackface and steals children from Wal-Mart.

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.

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 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.

If women are breadwinners and men bring home the bacon, why do people complain about having no dough? I'm confused. Also hungry.

I've got butterflies in my stomach... because I ate a cocoon quesadilla!

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.

Cain understands domestic issues because he had experience selling pizza; and he understands international issues because pizza is Italian.

I do my show half-hour a night four nights a week. I haven't seen my kids in 18 months, and I am losing calcium in my bones. Doctors say I should stop. I'm not going to.

Women don't want all that. Women just want a partner who is considerate and attentive, who will spoon with them while reciting Keats, and feed them organic yogurt by candlelight on a seaside cliff at sunset.

I have two last pieces of advice. First, being pre-approved for a credit card does not mean you have to apply for it. And lastly, the best career advice I can give you is to get your own TV show. It pays well, the hours are good, and you are famous. And eventually some very nice people will give you a doctorate in fine arts for doing jack squat.

Cardinal Dolan, of course, has a very, very hard job: trying to hold up Catholic family values in sexually liberal New York City. I'm not saying New York is the Gay Mecca. But it's at least Gay-rusalem.

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.

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.

Made no mistake: America is a Christian nation. The bedrock of our theo-democracy is our Judeo-Christian values. that term, by the way, is a bit of a misnomer. It implies that Christianity and Judaism are equal.

Citizens United said that transparency would be the disinfectant, but (c)(4)'s are warm, wet, moist incubators. There is no disinfectant.

The entire future of marriage rests with Justice Anthony Kennedy, the man who declared in Citizens United that corporations are people with constitutional rights. I just hope he doesn't do anything rash, like declare that homosexuals are people with constitutional rights.

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.

The beauty of new media is that no evidence is necessary. The brave blog-troopers have stormed the cockpit of news, and wrestled the joystick of authority away from the seasoned pilots of the press who would land our country at the Facts International Airport.

In 1986, our commencement speaker was George Schultz, secretary of state, fourth in line to the president. You get me-basic cable's second most popular fake newsman. At this rate, the class of 2021 will be addressed by a zoo parrot in a mortar-board that has been trained to say "congratulations.

When meeting royalty, it is very important, no matter how excited you are, not to vomit on them. Instead, vomit on the nearest commoner.

Odyssey Dawn? That's not a military operation. That's a Carnival Cruise ship.

I don't want someone shoving his views down my throat, unless they're covered in a crunchy candy shell.

Will Herman Cain become the first black President that I acknowledge? I call him a dark horse because he's an unlikely candidate who surged forward, and not because he's a horse.

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.

Opinions are like demo tapes. I don't want to hear yours

Thanksgiving is a magical time of year when families across the country join together to raise America's obesity statistics. Personally, I love Thanksgiving traditions: watching football, making pumpkin pie, and saying the magic phrase that sends your aunt storming out of the dining room to sit in her car.

I cannot stand people who disagree with me on the issue of Roe v. Wade... which I believe is about the proper way to cross a lake.

Everybody loves dogs. They're the pizza of the animal kingdom.

And when those bombs went off, there were runners who, after finishing a marathon, kept running for another two miles to the hospital to donate blood. So, here's what I know -- these maniacs may have tried to make life bad for the people of Boston, but all they can ever do, is show just how good those people are.

America used to live by the motto "Father Knows Best." Now we're lucky if "Father Knows He Has Children." We've become a nation of sperm donors and baby daddies.

Leaving religious texts open too interpretation is the downfall of religion itself. If it is truly the word of God then there is no room for interpretation; you either take all of it or none. There is no selective belief

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'?

Obamacare takes effect in less than eight months. Do you realize what this means? If you go to the emergency room now, you'll be covered by the time you finally see a doctor.

Today, folks, should be all about love. Unless you're old.

I hold a little fundraiser every day. Its called going to work.

Scientists have invented a new strain of cannabis without the high. They celebrated with non-alcoholic beer and furious dry-humping.

Sure, integrating schools may sound benign. But whats the use of living in a gated community if my kids go to school and get poor all over them?

Marijuana is a gateway drug that can lead to awful things, like Phish getting back together.

There once was a man name Barack, Whose re-election came as a shock. He raised the taxes I pay, And then turned marriage gay. And now he's coming after your glock.

The liberal Gluten-free agenda is turning our dogs lesbian.

God works in mysterious ways but at least he works, he's never on welfare in a mysterious way.

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

Gravitas is the soup bone in the stew of television news.

A native American group has filed a class-action lawsuit against the government for mismanagement of oil, gas, grazing, timber and other royalties since 1887. They're seeking $100 billion. Here's the good news: The government has responded what I believe is an appropriate counteroffer: A two-cent Navajo stamp.

You see, we're America the Beautiful, not "America Well At Least She Has A Great Personality".

Ignorance is bliss-Oedipus ruined a great sex life by asking too many questions.

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."

It would be a very short pint. It would be gummy bears and matzah, and be called Chewy Jewy.

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.

I can't be gay! I'm a happily married conservative, just like Ted Haggard and Larry Craig.

Oh sure, its fine when a monkey does it. But when I throw barrels at an Italian plumber, they call it a hate crime!

If you are a hermaphrodite, it is physically impossible to be gay.

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.

In God's eyes all children are beautiful but here on earth we have higher standards.

Let freedom ka-ching...Corporations do everything people do except breathe, die and go to jail for dumping 1.3 million pounds of PCBs in the Hudson River.

So what? A lobbyist cheated Indian tribes out of $25 million then laundered their money through phony Christian charities trying to stop other Indian tribes from getting casinos [on screen: 'Thou Shalt Not Compete'] and bribe congressmen in the process. Know what I call that? I call that business as usual in Washington. [on screen: 'Screwing Indians']

If our Founding Fathers wanted us to care about the rest of the world, they wouldn't have declared their independence from it.

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.

I've always been a big fan of beauty. Sure, you can't judge a book by its cover but who wants to have sex with a book?

Republicans: the party that brought us 'Just Say No.' First as a drug policy, then as their entire platform.