15 Stephen Colbert Quotes on Humor

Stephen Colbert quotes on humor

1. Such a proud moment of professionalism. You work for years crafting cogent satirical essays and the thing that everybody remembers is me making love to a Chiquita and bursting into laughter. What you can't see off camera is Jon started laughing first. And then I'm weak. As much as I want to make the audience laugh, I really want to make Jon laugh.

9. We claim no respectability. There's no status I would not surrender for a joke. So we don't have to defend anything.

10. I don't perceive my role as a newsman at all. I'm a comedian from stem to stern. You can cut me open and count the rings of jokes. If people learn something about the news by watching the show, that is incidental to my goal.

12. 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... Obviously, it's a challenge to make light of the darkness but, um, it's better than crying about it.

15. Not living in fear is a great gift, because certainly these days we do it so much. And do you know what I like about comedy? You can't laugh and be afraid at the same time-of anything. If you're laughing, I defy you to be afraid.

19. Well, I thought it was funny.

20. I teach Sunday School, motherf****r.

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

23. Before I get started, if anybody needs anything else at their tables, just speak slowly and clearly into your table numbers. Someone from the NSA will be right over with a cocktail.

43. I believe in pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. I believe it is possible - I saw this guy do it once in Cirque du Soleil. It was magical.

50. Earlier in the evening, Colbert had been beaten in the Outstanding Individual Performance category by Barry Manilow.

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

52. His humor is an accumulation of the eccentricities, mannerisms and jokes of his ten older brothers and sisters, a medley that trickled down.

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

55. 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 know what he's going to do.