Stephen Colbert (the character)
"I don't just pass judgment. I lean on the horn and flip it the bird."
Stephen Colbert introducing "Tip of the Hat, Wag of the Finger" on the November 28, 2011 broadcast, in response to a deceptive Mitt Romney ad campaign
"I'm getting angry at liberals!"
Stephen Colbert, ending nine years of the Colbert Report
"If [America] 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."
Stephen Colbert (the actual person)
"At every moment, we are volunteers."
Stephen Colbert
"Don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest 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. Saying yes leads to knowledge. ‘Yes’ is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes."
Stephen Colbert in a commencement address to Knox College
“‘You have to learn to love the bomb.’ It took me a long time to really understand what that meant. It wasn’t ‘Don’t worry, you’ll get it next time.’ It wasn’t ‘Laugh it off.’ No, it means what it says. 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.”
Stephen Colbert on how he learned to love the bomb
