Quotes

[January 2003, on why he loves The Daily Show (1996)] It saves me from sitting at home in my underwear screaming at the television set. If I didn't do this show I'd be the crazy guy at the bar sitting at the corner screaming "He doesn't know shit about what he's talking about!" That's the reason I do it.

[in January 2003] I think people are used to people in show business having a lot of hubris. I think I have a normal amount of self-loathing but because I'm in show business it's considered self-deprecation. In normal life I would just be considered your average neurotic.

[on the role of The Daily Show (1996)] When we spot silliness, we say so out loud. We're not really Democrat or Republican. We're out to stop that political trend of repeating things again and again until people are forced to believe them.

[in March 2003] I see myself as a driving force for global peace. Since we [The Daily Show (1996)] have been on CNNI [CNN International], the border between India and Pakistan has been stood down from red alert. Coincidence? We're bringing healing to the international community.

[March 2003, on his role in The Daily Show (1996)] Liberal and conservative have lost their meaning in America. I represent the distracted center.

[February 2003, about his position at The Daily Show (1996)] I mostly work on writing the show. We have a talented crew of writers and I'm like the managing editor. I am the fake Lou Grant of the fake news world.

[on the attitude of The Daily Show (1996), referring to a role played by Dan Aykroyd on Saturday Night Live (1975), September 30, 2002] We have always embraced stupidity. We have always worshipped at the altar of a man bent over with his butt crack exposed, fixing a refrigerator.

[about The Daily Show (1996)] That's the beauty of our show. Comedy or politics. We're sort of a mix. A space-age polymer of both. A synthetic comedy-like material.

[in Nov. 2002] I was born in New York City, but I was raised in New Jersey, part of the great Jewish emigration of 1963.

[on being picked to host the 78th Annual Academy Awards] As a performer, I'm truly honored to be hosting the show. Although, as an avid watcher of the Oscars, I can't help but be a little disappointed with the choice. It appears to be another sad attempt to smoke out Billy Crystal.

[on Tucker Carlson and his show] You may have heard that I went onto a TV show on CNN called Crossfire (1982), which I suppose is a debate show named after the stray bullets that strike and kill innocent bystanders during a gang fight. I said some pretty nasty things, most notably that their show was destroying America, and that he was a dick. He replied to me by saying, "You're not being funny." I then said, "I know that, but on Monday I will go back to being funny, and your show will still blow."

I'm thrilled to be asked to host the Academy Awards for the second time because, as they say, the third time's a charm.

What's nice to us about the relentlessness of the show [The Daily Show (1996)] is you know you're going to get that release no matter what, every night, Monday through Thursday. Like pizza, it may not be the best pizza you've ever had, but it's still pizza, man, and you get to have it every night. It's a wonderful feeling to have this toxin in your body in the morning, that little cup of sadness, and feel by 7 or 7:30 that night, you've released it in sweat equity and can move on to the next day.

[I'm looking forward to the end of the George W. Bush administration] as a comedian, as a person, as a citizen, as a mammal.

When in doubt, I can stare blankly. The rubber face. There's only so many ways you can stare incredulously at the camera and tilt an eyebrow, but that's your old standby: What would Buster Keaton do?

[What we're always looking for are] those types of stories that can, almost like the guy in The Green Mile (1999)--suck in all the toxins and allow you to do something with it that is palatable.

Hopefully the process is to spot things that would be grist for the funny mill. In some respects, the heavier subjects are the ones that are most loaded with opportunity because they have the most--you know, the difference between potential and kinetic energy?--they have the most potential energy, so to delve into that gives you the largest combustion, the most interest. I don't mean for the audience. I mean for us. Everyone here is working too hard to do stuff we don't care about.

[on his early days in stand-up comedy] I wish I could say there was a magic formula, but I just kept working at it.

The wisdom of the masses is not always . . . wise. You could put a lot of things to a vote--you could have put anti-miscegenation laws to a vote, and that would have passed pretty handily. Either all people are created equal--or they're not. You're either buying into the original premise of America--or you're not.

[on Obama Democrats] We came, we saw, we sucked.

[on interviewing models] Models talk to you for six minutes and they're very nice and they say thank you and then it's off to the larger European men they actually have sex with.

The more you spend time with the political and media, the less political you become and the more viscerally upset you become at corruption. I don't consider it political, because "political" I always sort of note as a partisan endeavor. But I have become increasingly unnerved by the depth of corruption that exists at many different levels. I'm less upset with politicians than with the media. I feel like politicians--the way I explain it, is when you go to a zoo and a monkey throws feces, it's a monkey. But when the zookeeper is standing right there and he doesn't say, "Bad monkey"--somebody's gotta be the zookeeper. I feel much more strongly about the abdication of responsibility by the media than by political advocates. They're representing a constituency. Our culture is just a series of checks and balances. The whole idea that we're in a battle between tyranny and freedom--it's a series of pendulum swings. And the swings have become less drastic over time. That's why I feel, not sanguine but at least a little bit less frightful, in that our pendulum swings have become less and less. But what has changed is the media's sense of their ability to be responsible arbiters. I think they feel fearful. I think there's this whole idea now that there's a liberal media conspiracy, and I think they feel if they express any authority or judgment, which is what I imagine is editorial control, they will be vilified.

You'd be surprised at how easily I turn it off when I go home . . . The kids and I, we watch Wizards of Waverly Place (2007), and I don't think about it again . . . The real challenge is when I'm at work, I'm at work. I'm locked in, I'm ready to go, I'm focused. When I'm at home, I'm locked in and I'm ready to go and I'm focused on home. We don't watch the show. We don't watch the news. We don't do any of that stuff. I sit down, I play Barbies. And sometimes the kids will come home and play with me.

[on Late Show with David Letterman (1993), 2/16/2012, about his wife and their children, Nate and Maggie] She was raised Catholic, I was raised Jewish. We're raising them to be sad.

[on the fight against obesity] I love this idea you have of banning sodas larger than 16 ounces. It combines the draconian government overreach people love with the probable lack of results which they expect.

[on Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef] The only real difference between him and me is that he performs his satire in a country still testing the limits of its hard-earned freedom, where those who speak out against the powerful still have much to fear. Yet even under these difficult circumstances, he manages to produce an incredible show: a hilarious blend of mimicry, confusion, outrage and bemusement, highlighting the absurdities and hypocrisies of his country's rebirth--all wielded with the precision of a scalpel. Bassem Youssef is my hero.

[on returning to The Daily Show (1996) after a brief time away] I've missed you so much. You don't know what it's like out there. Nobody applauds every stupid little thing you do.

[on England] You once dominated half the globe but if you lose Scotland you're down to the one corner of Ireland that doesn't hate you and Wales, a territory with so few natural resources it needs to import vowels.

[on the reaction to his leaving The Daily Show (1996)] Last night I was cruising the Internet, and I guess my question to you is . . . did I die? Because it all seems very "I died."

When you are actually powerful, you don't need to be petty.

[opening his first show after 9-11] Are you okay? We pray that you are and that your family is.

My friend Bill O'Reilly is completely full of shit. Now he and I do agree this country does face some issues. What we disagree [about] is the scope of these issues ,the cause of these issues and the timing of these issues. I believe we have complex problems. Since its [inception] what is wrong with this country is not that we face problems we have never faced before--we face a deficiency in our "problem solving mechanism". The reason we face difficulty in our problem solving mechanism is that a good portion of this country has created an "alternate universe", in which the issues that we face involve a woman from Georgetown who wanted birth control, which is a health issue for women covered under her health insurance in the same way Viagra is covered. I call this "alternate universe" where these folks live: Bullshit Mountain, the denizens of Bullshit Mountain believe many things: a Kenyan Muslim president has fundamentally changed the relationship between government and the people of this country; on Bullshit Mountain if they built it, it was because of their success and a little quick moxie and some freedom juice. BUT if life hasn't worked out for them it is the government on their back, Bullshit Mountain is a dangerous place, not to mention the winters on Bullshit Mountain. The winters are long and cold and Christmas--the [most] ubiquitous holiday in the history of mankind--is under threat on Bullshit Mountain because somewhere somehow a parade in Tulsa has changed its name from "Christmas" to "holiday", I have come here tonight to plead to the mayor of Bullshit Mountain to talk to your people. Now I know you don't live on Bullshit Mountain yearlong; obviously you have to leave for provisions, and I believe you have a summer place, but until we can agree on a reality that exists in this country you and those denizens believe we face a cataclysmic societal cataclysm between freedom and socialism. On Bullshit Mountain our problems are amplified and our solutions are simplified and that's why they won't work. We face a deficit crisis we've never faced before, we are merely weeks from becoming a failed state or--even worse--Greece and [their] way to solve it is to kill Big Bird. Now let me say this: that is not a solution and I believe we will take you down from the mountain tonight and you can live among the people again. Thank you.

Songs aren't literal, you know that, right? When The Weather Girls are singing "It's Raining Men", its not literally precipitating men. It's a metaphor

[on Fox News Channel] A 24-hour biased propaganda delivery system relentlessly promoting ideological, opinionated perceptions while masquerading as a news organization

[why he doesn't miss The Daily Show (1996) after two months] Because I feel like I completed it. It's when you feel like you completed a project to the best of your ability. When you've done the best that you think you're able to do, so I have no regrets. All I can do now is be happy that I had that opportunity, the joy in creating it, growing it, evolving it and maintaining it.

[his farewell adieu to Fox News] Adios, motherfuckers!

[on Donald Trump's 2016 presidential campaign] What struck me that was odd about this election was that nobody asked him what makes America great.

[on political redundancy and rhetoric] Every candidate says something along these lines" "Vote for me, I know where you're coming from, I'm just like each and every one of you". Here's an idea: don't be me, be better than me, be better than me so you can keep me safe at night, be better than me so you provide me health care, be better than me so you can stop terrorism from trying to kill me.

[on hypocrisy in America] There is now this idea that anyone who voted for him [Donald Trump] has to be defined by the worst of his rhetoric, like, there are guys in my neighborhood that I love, that I respect, that I think have incredible qualities who are not afraid of Mexicans, and not afraid of Muslims, and not afraid of blacks. They're afraid of their insurance premiums. In the liberal community you have this idea of creating people as a monolith. Don't look at Muslims as a monolith. They are individuals, and it would be ignorance. But everybody who voted for Trump is a monolith, is a racist. That hypocrisy is also real in our country.

[on Donald Trump] He isn't even a Republican: He's a repudiation of Republicans.

[on Donald Trump running for President] I pray that he runs, the man puts his name on everything he has, the only other people who do that in the world are six-year-old's, like that for a comedian, he has his name on a helicopter, who puts their name on a helicopter, does he lose it in the parking lot? He has silly hair and crazy thoughts. That to me, before he runs for President, he spends his day arbitrating arguments between Meat loaf and Gary Busey, for me I could put another wing on my house if that guy runs. I'd be honored