Stephen Colbert

“I love the earth. If you ask me it's the greatest planet in the world.”

“Dreams can change, if we all stuck with our first dreams there would be a lot of cowboys and princesses running around.”

“Throughout human history, countries rise and fall. But not America--we continue to rise and rise, like dough, until Jesus bakes us in the fiery Afterscape of the Rapture.”

“Contraception leads to more babies being born out of wedlock, like fire extinguishers lead to more fires.”

“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”

“Mitt Romney's email was hacked! So if you start getting messages that sound like they're from a bot, he's fixed the problem.”

“Scientists have invented a new strain of cannabis without the high. They celebrated with non-alcoholic beer and furious dry-humping.”

“Summer movie idea: take all the sequels that are out right now, and make movies about their backstories.”

“After obsessively Googling symptoms for four hours, I discovered 'obsessively Googling symptoms' is a symptom of hypochondria.”

“If I had one wish, it would be for self-drying pants. Wait -- no! Unlimited wishes! How do I return these stupid pants?!”

“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.”

“A new study shows that having a severe phobia can hasten aging. But what if my greatest fear IS aging?!?”

“The Yankees' Facebook page was hacked. The hacker was immediately purchased and signed to a 5 year contract with the Yankees.”

“I love making observations. That one is a classic example.”

“It's August, which means Congress is on recess and Mitch McConnell has shimmied back into the ocean to seek a mate.”

“If women are breadwinners and men bring home the bacon, why do people complain about having no dough? I'm confused. Also hungry.”

“...why were you happier when you were a kid? Because you didn't know anything. The more you know, the sadder you get.”

“Now, for my younger viewers out there, a book is something we used to have before the internet. It’s sort of a blog for people with attention spans.”

“That’s why our TVs are brimming with so much hot man-on-pan action. You can’t channel surf for long without seeing turkey getting stuffed over and over until they finally cut to the gravy shot.”

“Science attacks our most cherished opinions. Opinions which come straight from our collective gut. Oh, wait, according to gastroenterologists, the only thing that comes from the gut is waste left from the digestion of food. That’s right, “waste.” I guess that means that scientists literally think our opinions should be flushed down the toilet!”

“The worst thing about affirmative action is that it encourages reverse discrimination, so-called because it goes in the opposite way of how we naturally discriminate.”

“Unfortunately, most of today’s women resemble bowerbirds that force suitors to build elaborate nests of twigs, leaves, and discarded garbage before choosing a mate. Any male who doesn’t meet her standards doesn’t get to mate that year; one assumes he just stays in his bower, reads bower manuals, and watches bowerbird porn.”

“Luckily, a recent survey published in the American Sociological Review revealed that atheists are the least trusted group in America—less trusted, even, than homosexuals. It makes sense at least we trust the homosexuals with our hair.”

“Any religion whose messiah’s name isn’t recognized by Microsoft Word can’t be that much of a threat.”

“In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth.” Sorry, Darwin-huggers, but it’s not “In the beginning, a monkey evolutioned gay marriage.”

“Life is chaotic and unpredictable. If a butterfly flaps its wings in one part of the world, it could cause people at the opposite end of the globe to watch a Discovery Channel special on butterflies”

“Sorry, but retirement offends me. You don’t just stop fighting in the middle of a war because your legs hurt. So why do you get to stop working in the middle of your life just because your prostate hurts? That’s desertion.”

“Divorce is marital welfare.It’s just couples asking society to bail them out because they didn’t do enough research before they got married.”

“A mother needs to be in the home even when the kids aren’t. A messy house sends a coded message to children: “I’m not loveable. Otherwise Mother would dust.”

“Don’t get me wrong. Being a mom is no picnic. Raising the kids is the mother’s responsibility. It’s a thankless, solitary job, like sheriff or Pope.”

“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. You know what I mean? I’ve always liked that phrase “He was visited by grief,” because that’s really what it is. Grief is its own thing. It’s not like it’s in me and I’m going to deal with it. It’s a thing, and you have to be okay with its presence. If you try to ignore it, it will be like a wolf at your door.”

“Baptists:I'm a pious guy, but even I have my limits. I draw the line right around spending 8 hours in church every Sunday. Church should be a solemn 45 minutes to sit quietly and feel guilty, with donuts at the end to make you feel better. I don't go in for a full day of singing and dancing and rejoicing, no matter how nice the hats are. I prefer my Gospel monotonously droned to me from a pulpit, thank you very much.”

“Don’t be afraid to be a fool. Remember, you cannot be both young and wise. Young people who pretend to be wise to the ways of the world are mostly just cynics. Cynicism masquerades as wisdom, but it is the farthest 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. Saying yes leads to knowledge. “Yes” is for young people. So for as long as you have the strength to, say yes.”

“The fate of our country is now in the hands of people who don't think about what they want until they get right up to the register at McDonald's.”

“I like talking about people who don't have any power and it seems like some of the least powerful people in the United States are the migrant workers who come and do our work and don't have any rights as a result. And yet we still invite them to come here, and at the same time ask them to leave.”

“There hasn't been a scandal this big at the C.I.A. since (CLASSIFIED) committed (CENSORED) to (REDACTED).”

“My guest Newt Gingrich shut down the government during the Clinton administration. I'll ask him when it's gonna start working again.”

“Can't wait for tomorrow when I get to exercise my patriotic duty as an American: Complaining about how long it's taking to VOTE.”

“Forgot to live-tweet the election last night, so I'm post-tweeting today. I'll start as soon as my fingers unclench from their rage fists.”

“I may be just an empty flesh terminal reliant on technology for all my ideas, memories and relationships, but I am confident that all of that everything that makes me a unique human being is still out there somewhere, safe in a theoretical storage space owned by giant, multinational corporations.”

“It’s clear that when we’re this outnumbered by the creatures, we have to take a page from the British Empire and rule the lesser species through intimidation. That’s why the single most important thing you can do as a human is to dominate an animal. Need more proof?“Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” I’d say that about covers it.”

“It's the way our founding fathers would have wanted it, if they had founded corporations instead of just a country.”

“‎You cannot correct an old person every time they say something offensive. You would never make it through Thanksgiving dinner!”

“... had to pee like a racehorse at an Iced Tea convention.”

“When meeting royalty, it is very important, no matter how excited you are, not to vomit on them. Instead, vomit on the nearest commoner.”

“Internet users, that blue screen of death you were looking at this morning? That's the sky. If you're still confused, look it up on Wikipedia tomorrow.”

“They said you can't go to the moon. They said you can't put cheese inside a pizza crust, but NASA did it. They had to, because the cheese kept floating off in space.”

“So my heart goes out to them. Figuratively. I would never actually entrust my heart to scientists—they'd probably implant it in a baboon. And a baboon with my heart would be practically unstoppable. Baboon strength and agility combined with my determination and media savvy? It would be a threat to all of humanity.”

“So, if I'm no cheerleader of sports, why write a chapter about it? Sports do have some positive impact on society. They solve problems, such as how to get inner-city kids to spend $175 on shoes. They serve as a backdrop for some of our most memorable commercials. And they remain the one and only relevant application of math. Not only that, but we have sports to thank for most of the last century's advances in manliness. The system starts in school, where gym class separates the men from the boys. Then those men are taught to be winners, or at least, losers that hate themselves.”

“Christianity is the best way to cure gayness—just get on your knees, take a swig of wine, and accept the body of a man into your mouth.”