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Stephen Colbert [1964-0] American

Rank: 101
Comedian

Stephen Tyrone Colbert is an American comedian, writer, producer, actor, media critic, and television host. He currently hosts The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, a late-night television talk show on CBS.

Famous, Truth, Car, Change, Cool, Dad, Dreams, Funny, Inspirational, Parenting, Poetry, Teacher, Thankful, Trust, Wisdom

Quote	Tags	Rank
Thankfully, dreams can change. If we'd all stuck with our first dream, the world would be overrun with cowboys and princesses.	Change, Dreams, Thankful	101
I can't prove it, but I can say it.		102
I just think Rosa Parks was overrated. Last time I checked, she got famous for breaking the law.	Famous	103
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.		104
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?	Cool, Inspirational	105
I deliver my Truth hot and hard.	Truth	106
I believe gender is a spectrum, and I fall somewhere between Channing Tatum and Winnie the Pooh.		107
The truthiness is, anyone can read the news to you. I promise to feel the news 'at' you.		108
In order to maintain an untenable position, you have to be actively ignorant. One motto on the show is, 'Keep your facts, I'm going with the truth.'	Truth	109
Isn't an agnostic just an atheist without balls?		110
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.		111
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!		112
I not only loved studying theater, I loved being a theater major. It gave me an excuse to brood, to grow a beard, to wear black 'at' people. I didn't just want to play Hamlet, I wanted to be Hamlet.		113
I don't accept the status quo. I do accept Visa, MasterCard, or American Express.		114
Facts matter not at all. Perception is everything. It's certainty.		115
I liked comedy as a kid. When I was a kid, I'd go to sleep to, like, Bill Cosby albums every night. I'd listen to 'Bill Cosby Is A Very Funny Fellow... Right!' and 'Wonderfulness,' which are two of his most famous albums. Then the next night, I'd flip them over, 'cause it was the old stackable turntable.	Famous, Funny	116
I'm a simple man with a simple mind. I hold a simple set of beliefs that I live by. Number one, I believe in America. I believe it exists. My gut tells me I live there. I feel that it extends from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and I strongly believe it has 50 states.		117
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.	Teacher	118
Shamelessness is a wonderful part of the character.		119
There's nothing wrong with being gay. I have plenty of friends who are going to hell.		120
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.		121
The interesting thing about grief, I think, is that it is its own size. It is not the size of you. It is its own size. And grief comes to you.		122
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.		123
I am highly variable in my devotion. From a doctrinal point of view or a dogmatic point of view or a strictly Catholic adherent point of view, I'm first to say that I talk a good game, but I don't know how good I am about it in practice.		124
You shouldn't listen to us at all if you're looking for information. We don't take ourselves seriously on any level; we're just comedians.		125
Status is always ripe for satire, status is always good for comedy.		126
I spent my first two years at a small all-male college in Virginia called Hampden-Sydney. That was like going to college 120 years ago. The languages, a year of rhetoric, all of the great books, Western Man courses, stuff like that.		201
I've been accused of being unambitious, but what I do takes up every minute. I'm executive producer, I'm a writer and the host.		202
Reality has a well-known liberal bias.		203
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.	Wisdom	204
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.	Famous	205
You can't really be passionately moderate. It's like wearing an 'Extra Medium' - it doesn't exist.		206
When my car runs out of gas, I buy a new one. I don't want to ride around in a quitter.	Car	207
I heard that after you throw away a 'New York Times,' it takes over a hundred years for the lies to biodegrade.		208
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.	Dad	209
We have this idea in our minds that there's this separation of church and state in America, which I think is a good thing. And we extend that to our politics - not just church and state, but it's also there's a separation of religion and politics. But of course there isn't.		210
If I had free time to go to Los Angeles to shoot a movie, I would rather spend it with my kids.		211
There's a degree of narcissism involved in anything in show business. I mean, you can't do it without a healthy ego. Why would you want anybody to listen to you?		212
We are thrilled that Jon Batiste is joining 'The Late Show' family of products. For my money, nobody plays like Jon Batiste. And you can trust me, because it is my money.	Trust	213
When I got to 'The Daily Show,' they asked me to have a political opinion. It turned out that I had one, but I didn't realize quite how liberal I was until I was asked to make passionate comedic choices as opposed to necessarily successful comedic choices.		214
Who really wants to be themselves when they're teenagers?		215
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.		216
That's my parenting style - 'Go watch the TV.' I'm one of 11 children, and my mother's parenting style was, 'There's the TV. Go watch it. Mommy's got 10 other people to take care of.'	Parenting	217
I wrote things for the school's newspaper, and - like all teenagers - I dabbled in poetry.	Poetry	218
My brother Billy was the joke teller. My brother Jim had a really sharp, cutting wit. And the teller of long stories, that was my brother Ed. As a child, I just absorbed everything they said, and I was always in competition for the laughs.		219
All I can do is today and tomorrow and have some idea of what we're doing next week. That's all I can worry about.		220
I'm an actor. I hate to blow everyone's illusions.		221
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.		222
What the right-wing in the United States tries to do is undermine the press.		223
I don't like books, they're all fact, no heart.		224
In order to be a top-tier candidate, I need 7.5 million dollars, and I currently have 0.0 million dollars.		225
I'm a huge news junkie. I love what the news does.		226
My mom kind of led me toward acting. She wanted to be an actress when she was younger. That made me interested in it when I was a kid, because she and I are very close.		301
I love being onstage. I love the relationship with the audience. I love the letting go, the sense of discovery, the improvising.		302
I started off at the Second City in Chicago... It's an improvisational theater that ostensibly does social and political satire, but when I was there, we generally didn't. We did character work, and we did just the silliest things we could think of. We weren't all that concerned with, you know, changing the world through mime.		303
I have a morality. I don't know if it's the best morality. And I do like thinking. If people perceive that as a moral intellectualism, that's fine. That's up to them to decide.		304
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.		305
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.		306
I look, absolutely, like I'm going to sell you insurance.		307
I'm very comfortable with uncomfortable situations, and I think that can seem odd to people, that I like the thrill of discomfort.		308
Make no mistake: I love women. I'm married to one, I was birthed by one, and I played one in my high school production of 'Romeo and Juliet.' No one else could fit into the bodice.		309
I'm not just a pundit - I'm a comedian.		310
Simply being a guest on David Letterman's show has been a highlight of my career. I never dreamed that I would follow in his footsteps, though everyone in late night follows Dave's lead. I'm thrilled and grateful that CBS chose me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to go grind a gap in my front teeth.		311
The first time I met Jon Stewart was at the press conference that Comedy Central held to announce Jon would be the new host of 'The Daily Show,' which back then was not called 'The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.'		312
My favorite off-camera memory of Jon Stewart is watching him jump from the second level of a tuna tower into the waters off Grand Cayman.		313
I'm a junkie for exhaustion, and I'm a junkie for setting up my expectations too high and then trying to meet them.		314
I loved George Carlin and Dean Martin. I was one of those kids who had every comedy album.		315
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.		316
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.		317
I have tender feelings for Nixon because everybody has warm feelings about their childhood. Actually, I didn't like the Watergate trials 'cause they interrupted 'The Munsters.'		318
I started as a straight actor. I'd go onstage, and I'd think, 'Wow, this is the only thing I want to work really hard at. I will rehearse fifty times on a single scene; I don't care - I'll do it again.'		319
My father always wanted to be 'Col-bear.' He lived in the same town as his father, and his father didn't like the idea of the name with the French pronunciation. So my father said to us, 'Do what you want. You're not going to offend anybody.' And he was dead long before I made my decision.		320
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.		321
I love 'Sunday in the Park with George.' I saw that when I was just, just starting theater school, and I remember singing 'Finishing the Hat' or at least reading the lyrics to 'Finishing the Hat' and other songs from 'Sunday in the Park with George' to my mom to try to explain why I wanted to be an artist.		322
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.		323
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.		324
The letters that say 'I'm getting the messages you're sending me through the television screen' are not great. But those are few and far between, thank God. I get wonderful letters, and people send me artwork.		325
If you don't give power to the words that people throw at you to hurt you, they don't hurt you anymore. And you actually have power over those people.		326
The only thing that I don't like is my kids watching comedy that isn't actually funny. There's a lot of supposed tween comedy on TV that isn't particularly funny, but it's got a lot of laugh track. And I go, 'Please don't watch that. Please just watch something that's actually funny.'		401
I like being boring to a certain extent. I don't have to be flashy. I get to put all of that into a show, and when it's over, I don't have to be that.		402

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