The Late Show (franchise)

"bribing the president"— Stephen Colbert criticized Paramount for bribing the president with its $16.5 million lawsuit settlement in relation to his gripes about his political opponent’s 2024 interview.

Anyone illegally using that music is gonna have to pay through the nose.

— Stephen Colbert on The Late Show's May 21 finale, commenting on copyright enforcement around the Peanuts song

We’re proud to partner with Byron Allen on a new business and programming model for late night that proactively addresses a network daypart that was cost-prohibitive to continue. With this ‘time buy’ model, we have shifted an hour that was losing roughly $40 million annually to $15 million in profit — a $55 million swing.

— a CBS spokesperson told the Daily Beast in a statement

"I absolutely love that Colbert got fired. His talent was even less than his ratings," Trump wrote after the cancellation was announced. "I hear Jimmy Kimmel is next. Has even less talent than Colbert!"— Donald Trump, in a social media post after the cancellation was announced

We were lucky enough to be here for the last eleven years.

— Said by Stephen Colbert during The Late Show's final episode as he reflected on its 11-year run.

Colbert is finally finished at CBS. Amazing that he lasted so long! No talent, no ratings, no life. He was like a dead person. You could take any person off of the street and they would be better than this total jerk. Thank goodness he’s finally gone!

— Trump on Truth Social after Colbert's final The Late Show episode

Not everybody’s gonna love me. Not everyone’s going to love the fact that I’m not being racist or antisemitic or sexist, he continued. But there is that one or two percent that would be like ‘Hell yeah, I’m rolling with you,’ and I learned that at an early age, and by the way, that simple lesson made me a billionaire.

— By Byron Allen, in an NPR interview about Comics Unleashed and his stance ahead of its debut in the new timeslot.

To the folks at CBS, in the words of the great Ed Murrow, good night and good luck, motherf---ers.

— David Letterman, delivering a pointed message to CBS on The Late Show with Stephen Colbert, during his appearance to help send off Colbert

No, no, we were lucky enough to be here for the last 11 years. You can’t take this for granted.

— Stephen Colbert, during the final episode of The Late Show at the Ed Sullivan Theater

I could not — I didn’t know what to do with my eyeballs when Michelle Williams was on for the first time.

— Stephen Colbert spoke these words on the Strike Force Five podcast, recounting his reaction to Michelle Williams's first appearance on The Late Show (2016).

a big fat bribe

— Stephen Colbert, describing the settlement (widely reported as $16 million to his future presidential library) as 'a big fat bribe' on his show

The hole’s here, you can’t ignore it, the only choice you have now is how you choose to walk through it.

— Jon Stewart, appearing on behalf of Paramount, urged his friend and former colleague to face the future on his own terms.