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All Quotes by author - Stephen Colbert

" 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. "

" 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. "

" Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty. "

" 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. "

" I don't accept the status quo. I do accept Visa, MasterCard, or American Express. "

" 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. "

" I have a doctorate in fine arts from Knox College in Illinois. All I did was give a speech, and now everybody has to call me Dr. Colbert. "

" 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. "

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

" 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'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. "

" 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. "

" In order to be a top-tier candidate, I need 7.5 million dollars, and I currently have 0.0 million dollars. "

Million Dollars

" 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. "

" 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. "

" 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? "

" 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 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. "

" 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. "

" 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! "

" Reality has a well-known liberal bias. "

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

" 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. "

" 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. "

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

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