He's able to create a universe where something surreal happens on [The Colbert Report] that seems ordinary, and all of a sudden the absurd appears not mundane but expected, organic... So he can have a conversation with Richard Holbrooke and Willie Nelson and it all makes perfect sense and yet it couldn't appear anywhere else without appearing burlesque. Somehow he has managed to create a fake world that has impacted and found standing in the real world.

Part of the joy of being in character is being able to get away with things others cannot. Though a lot of that is that [he] is so high on Nyquil you never kno…

The thing about Colbert is he's fucking brilliant... He was always the smartest guy in the room, and he was always smart enough not to let you know he was the …

He's like a living wall of encyclopedias that like to drink beer.

on starting to shoot Good Eats in HDTV format: But, although our look may have gotten expensive, I assure you our props, sets, costumes, actors, and general me…

When television is good, nothing--not the theater, not the magazines or newspapers--nothing is better. But when television is bad, nothing is worse. I invite y…

This is The Tonight Show. I can't tell you too much about it, other than the fact that this program is going to go on forever.