Stephen Colbert Character Quotations

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.

Shamelessness is a wonderful part of the character.

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.

My character is not based on (Bill) O'Reilly, ... It's the same guy from The Daily Show. You'd never say it's O'Reilly.

NC passed law against global warming science, therefore it's not happening. So I'm ignoring Twitter's 140-character limit, so it's not happ

I'm off for two weeks, so until I get back, take the characters in this tweet and parcel them out one per day. Use this Q wisely.

My character is self-important, poorly informed, well-intentioned but an idiot, ... So we said, `Let's give him a promotion.

Who would have thought that a means of communication limited to 140 characters would ever create misunderstandin g.

I won't be doing the new show in character, so we'll all get to find out how much of him was me. I'm looking forward to it.

We [comics] create our own reality on the show. I'm in a cocoon of the character's creation. Even within that reality, he's in a cocoon. While I'm an improviser and enjoy discovery, the show follows a script. I have a pretty good idea what's going to happen. It's a very ­crafted, controlled environment.

If I'm doing a talk show or an interview, or pretty much anything where I can't control the context, I'm loath to do the character.