"I just feel like people like a little break. Especially at 12:37 at night, you go, like, 'I'm just tired of the snarky right now. I just want to lie down and have somebody make me laugh for an hour. Entertain me, and then I'm going to sleep with a smile on my face.' That's my job; that's what I do."

"When I was a kid, you would tune in to 'The Tonight Show' before you went to sleep. Johnny Carson. A big treat. I know it's a privilege of mine to be able to be in people's homes. So I hope I make everyone proud, including my parents, and do a good job in this."

"Politics is pop. Our job as comedians - especially me, as a late-night talk show, which is a broader audience - is to amplify what we think America is thinking."

"Thank you... fantasy football draft, for letting me know that even in my fantasies, I am bad at sports."

"Fools are my theme, let satire be my song."

"A courageous heart knows that the silence between the notes creates the music."

"We have been working with Habitat for Humanity and we have built eighty homes, 80% of which are being lived in by New Orleans' musicians. It is called the Musicians' Village and at the center is the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music."

"The business side of film has goofed up so many things, but even that's changing. It happened to the music industry and now it's happening to the film studios. It's crazy what's going on. But artists should have control of their work especially if, as I always say, you never turn down a good idea and never take a bad idea."