Stephen Colbert Quotes

I'm a fake intellectual.

Our business is infested with idiots who try to impress by using pretentious jargon.

How many people become abstract as a way of appearing profound.

Contemporary fiction is the hardest for me because I am not really in the popular culture - I don't watch TV.

A mugwump is a person educated beyond his intellect.

I was sick and tired of reading other people's epigraphs. They all seemed to be in ancient Greek, middle French or, when they were translated, they never seemed to relate to the book at hand. Basically, they seemed to be there just to baffle you and to impress you with how smart the writer is.

Most period drama is so earnest. A lot of it is about making yourself take seriously things you wouldn't normally.

I have heard Science Fiction and Fantasy referred to as the fiction of ideas, and I like that definition, but it's the mainstream public that chooses my books for the most part.

I am a big theater fan. It's mostly just being pretentious, I think, and trying to look smart.

There's no such thing as the contemporary novel. Before I seem the complete reactionary, let me add that I've happily joined in many discussions about 'the contemporary novel' where what that usually, unproblematically means is novels that have appeared recently or may appear soon.

No matter how you cut them, paste them, rotate them, or distort them, lip syncing and air-guitar playing are fundamentally foolish activities, and anyone seen to be engaging in them with anything approaching a straight face is, by definition, taking herself or himself much too seriously.

He wrapped himself in quotations - as a beggar would enfold himself in the purple of Emperors.

I tend to read quite serious things in order to try and appear superior.

Never use jargon words like 'reconceptualize', 'demassification', 'attitudinally', 'judgmentally'. They are hallmarks of a pretentious ass.

Certain books seem to be written, not that we might learn from them, but in order that we might see how much the author knows.

I learned over the years that it's easy to appear smart referencing things that people don't know.

But if you tell folks you're a college student, folks are so impressed. You can be a student in anything and not have to know anything. Just say toxicology or marine biokinesis, and the person you're talking to will change the subject to himself. If this doesn't work, mention the neural synapses of embryonic pigeons.

Please stop putting quotes from Nietzsche at the end of your emails. Five years ago you were laughing your guts out over American Pie 2. What — suddenly you’ve magically turned into Noam Chomsky?

The world is full of people who are very clever at seeming much smarter than they really are.

Much blood has also been spilled on the carpet in attempts to distinguish between science fiction and fantasy. I have suggested an operational definition: science fiction is something that COULD happen - but usually you wouldn't want it to. Fantasy is something that COULDN'T happen - though often you only wish that it could.

In the early days you have a tendency to intellectualize, but you're really just trying to sound smart and score with the chicks.

The necessity of saying something, the embarrassment produced by the consciousness of having nothing to say, and the desire to exhibit ability, are three things sufficient to render even a great man ridiculous.

A great many people think that polysyllables are a sign of intelligence and refinement so they think they will impress others with their command of obscure words.

There are a lot of self important people who make you believe they're artistes and high on the intelligence quotient and I've sat down and listened to them and just been bored.

I will use big words from time to time, the meanings of which I may only vaguely perceive, in hopes such cupidity will send you scampering to your dictionary: I will call such behavior 'public service'.