Stephen Colbert Quotes

You try to - you want to fly on both sides of the political fence because that's where the - where the comedy is.

For me, my party views don't advance my narrative. Until I can find a way to write political satire like my idols Christopher Buckley or P.J. O'Rourke, I'll simply say what team I play for and leave it at that.

Political satire is a serious thing. In democratic newspapers throughout the world there are daily cartoons that often are not even funny, as is the case especially in many English-language newspapers. Instead, they contain a political message, and the artist takes full responsibility.

From my experience, politicians are much more uncomfortable being made fun of than they are being preached at and screeched at - you know, and the soapbox routine. They're much more uneasy knowing they're a target of ridicule.

I consciously decided to make both 'Sammy's Hill' and 'Sammy's House' more of a warm satire and not go the route of writing a dark and bitter book about D.C.

I'm not the guy to ask about politics. I'm a gag writer.

No politician would ever comment on a cartoon unless it was to show what a great sense of humour they have, that they can laugh at themselves.

I've always been interested in socially political, or overtly political, comedy.

Every day I turn on my television set and I see Newt Gingrich on television, I rejoice.

I just heard the latest joke about my hair: 'Do you know what that is on her head? It's a steering wheel to drive the state.'

You know, I'm a comedian the same as Bill Maher and Jon Stewart. We all came up the same way. The three of us have interest in politics; I call us fundits, we're fundits! We're not pundits!

I think up until the point when we started in the business, which was in the early '70s, most of the humor was political. The smart humor was political satire.

I don't make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.

Jon Stewart, Bill Maher, Stephen Colbert. Those are the guys I look at who are telling me pretty much the truth. And they throw humor into it which makes it much more interesting to listen to.

Sarcasm all around the world is always against right wing and against people in power. That's the definition of political sarcasm.

Really, what's not to love in John McCain, satire-wise? As if he had not already been good enough to us, then came his nomination of Sarah Palin. Here, truly, was a gift from the gods of satire.

Whoever's president I'm not going to be short on material.

I have always said, the first Whig [Liberal] was the Devil.

I've made enough jokes about Iran's leadership that I'm sure if I showed up that I would get a nice escort - to the main prison - and then I could do a show there.

If you wanted to hear politics, you'd go to Henry Kissinger; you wouldn't go to hear Jackie Mason. The reason I speak about politics is because I know I can get a laugh out of it.

If Obama was a sonnet, Trump is a limerick. And really, which ones do you enjoy more?

The reality is, to watch Jon Stewart, you already have to have watched the news. In other words, it's not funny if he does a joke about John McCain and they don't know who John McCain is.

In a weird way, our satirists probably have the most complicated, nuanced views of our politics now - Jon Stewart, Stephen Colbert, John Oliver. I don't know what that says about our country.

People go, 'Oh, Trump must be good for comedy,' and I go, 'Ehhh.'

Republicans are easy to make fun of.