Top 522 Quotes & Sayings by Stephen Colbert - Page 5

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."

There's a buzz to failing and not dying.

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.

I did learn something interesting [while at the Atlanta airport]. You have to be a member of the TSA in order to legally perform a cavity search. My apologies to the staff of Cinnabon, but you guys should really keep that extra frosting where the customers can find it.

Baby carrots are making me gay.

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.

Forgot to live-tweet the election last night, so I'm post-tweeting today. I'll start as soon as my fingers unclench from their rage fists.

Oops! I always thought PETA stood for Please Eat This Animal.

You said in your book that at the end of the day, every politician is human. What about during the day?

If Corporations are people, I guarantee you that a government of those people, by those people, and for those people will continue to exist.

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?

I scream, you scream, we all scream... for the truth.

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

Every night on my show, The Colbert Report, I speak straight from the gut, okay? I give people the truth, unfiltered by rational argument. I call it "The No Fact Zone.

Keep your facts, I'm going with the truth.

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 gotta tell you, I do not envy whoever they try to put in David Letterman's chair. Folks those are some huge shoes to fill, and some really big pants.

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.

You should spend more time with your families; write that novel you've always wanted to write. You know, the one about the fearless reporter who stands up to the administration. You know - fiction.

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're a perfectionist and you know you're about to do something at which you cannot be perfect, then that is daunting because you know what your heart is like and the way you approach your work.

It's the way our founding fathers would have wanted it, if they had founded corporations instead of just a country.

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.

I'm disappointed that my own Catholic Church has decided that capital punishment is wrong. Which is pretty hypocritical if you think about it, because they wouldn't even have a religion if it wasn't for capital punishment.

You may learn sooner than most generations the hard lesson that you must always make the path for yourself...There is no secret society out there that will tap you on your shoulder one night and show you the way.

Mitt Romney's email was hacked! So if you start getting messages that sound like they're from a bot, he's fixed the problem.

My character is self-important, poorly informed, well-intentioned but an idiot. So we said, `Let's give him a promotion.'

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

In the beginning, a monkey evolutioned gay marriage.

Jesus forgives sinners, not criminals.

If you're injecting fear into other people, then you're trying to kill their minds. You're trying to get them to stop thinking.

History moves fast. It's hard to believe that gay Americans achieved full constitutional personhood just five years after corporations did!

You don't want to just do a joke because it works - we can make a lot of jokes work - you want to do a joke because it will hopefully build into an argument.

I love the truth. It's the facts I'm not a fan of.

I believe Sarah Palin is a true statesman, whose experience as a failed vice presidential candidate, half-term governor and eight-episode reality star has fully prepared her to take control of our nuclear arsenal.

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

It's like boxing a glacier. Enjoy that metaphor, by the way, because your grandchildren will have no idea what a glacier is.

Liberals want to burn the flag, but progressives just want to microwave it?

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

Making a better tomorrow, tomorrow.

If Obama can force you to get health insurance just by calling it a tax, than there is nothing to stop him from making you gay marry an illegal immigrant wearing a condom on a hydroponic pot farm powered by solar energy.

Thinking that other people might be better than you is what makes you Canadian, not American.

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

Sorry, but retirement offends me. You don’t just stop fighting in the middle of a war because your legs hurt. So why do you get to stop working in the middle of your life just because your prostate hurts? That’s desertion.

Last night, we did the Threatdown -- God, it's hard to even talk about this -- and for the first time, I didn't mention bears. It's winter, they're asleep, I didn't think it would be a problem. But today I see this in the Toronto Globe and Mail -- apparently a 700-pound polar bear showed up at a children's hockey game. I've said this before, they're after our kids -- they're tender, juicy, you don't even have to throw away the bones.

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?"

(Rush are) like the JD Salinger of Canadian Prog Rock

Football is American; why are the Romans numering our bowls?!

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.

While skin and race are often synonymous, skin cleansing is good, race cleansing is bad.

You have a firm grasp of the obvious.

If poor people want food stamps, they should become massive corporations.

All Dogs Go To Heaven? Sorry, kids. It's only the dogs who've accepted Christ.

If God wanted us to accept gays, he'd have made us compassionate

We're not talking about truth, we're talking about something that seems like truth - the truth we want to exist.

The most common thing that real reporters say to me is, "I wish I could say what you say." What I don't understand is, why can't they say what I say, even in their own way? Does that mean they want to be able to name certain bald contradictions or hypocrisies that politicians have?

Love means never having to say you're sorry. That's why I never apologize to my mirror.

Pissing off PETA is as easy as pie. Delicious kitten pie.

You gotta learn to love when you're failing.... The embracing of that, the discomfort of failing in front of an audience, leads you to penetrate through the fear that blinds you. Fear is the mind killer.

As Shakespeare said, there's nothin' cooler than droppin' the 'g's off of gerunds!