Stephen Colbert Quotes

I had no idea what I was doing when I wrote 'Search.' There was no carefully designed work plan. There was no theory that I was out to prove.

U2 is sort of song writing by accident really. We don't really know what we're doing and when we do, it doesn't seem to help.

When you're writing, you're putting thought into what you want to express, and then you come up with it - it comes to you. When you're improvising, it's the same thing. You're writing. You just say it out loud right then, instead of saying, 'You think this might work?'

I don't know what I'm going to write when I begin to write. It feels like you are walking down a path, but you can't see around the bend and you don't know where you are going to go, which is fun.

I enjoy writing the same way I enjoy doing standup. Part of the challenge is being creative and making it work no matter what the constraints.

I think half the point of painting a picture is that you don't know what will happen... that if painters did know what was going to happen they wouldn't bother to do it.

I believe that comedians do what they do, and then they get credit or criticism for doing it. There's nothing planned about this.

I'm never quite sure how the poem is going to resolve itself and that I'm always in some way surprised. I make a discovery in a poem as I write it.

What's kind of weird is that when I'm writing I don't know where I'm going to go.

I never really know what I'm going to write next until it comes to me. So we'll just have to see what happens.

When I'm making a movie, I don't like to know what's going to happen next. I like to watch something and be surprised all the time, and just not know, and let it take me wherever.

I love writing stand-up so much and tinkering and looking for ideas.

I love improvising.

I've always believed acting is an improvisational art form, even when not a single line is changed. I mean, the behavior should always be improvised. My favorite moments in any performance are when I'm just along for the ride; when I'm surprising myself. I know when I'm done and I think to myself, 'Gee, I didn't see that coming,' I've done well.

That is a big danger, losing your inspiration. When I work in film and television I try to do each take a little differently. I never want to do the same thing twice, because then you're not being spontaneous, you're just recreating something.

I think my goal was just to do comedy, honestly. It still is. Whatever form that took or takes, it doesn't matter.

You don't know what inspires you. You like to think you know what inspires you, but in the final analysis I don't think you really do. It's great to look at a blank sheet of paper, you know, and walk up to an instrument and not know what's gonna happen. It's the most challenging thing I do.

I don't mind doing scripted material. It's actually kind of a relief, because improvising is a little bit like screenwriting on your feet.

With theatre, you have to be ready for anything.

And as I've gotten deeper into the process of making films and television and such, I think I have more trust in the fact that you really never know what you're going to find after the twenty-fifth take.

I like to sit down every day and not know where the book is going. I have no idea where the book is going to go or how it's going to end as I'm writing it.

I don't like improv at all. It terrifies me. I like to know exactly what I'm going to say. Being surprised does make me a better actor. Anytime I'm afraid of something that makes me rise to the occasion, it scares me, but it's what makes great actors - being in the moment.

I like being in focus, in the moment, changing and adapting and creating and advancing a scene.

Writing is like jazz. It can be learned, but it can't be taught.

I sometimes don't know what I'm writing when I start writing it, on some level.