Kevin Smith Quotes & Sayings

Other filmmakers make their movies and put them out and that's that. For me, for some odd reason, it goes deeper than that. — Kevin Smith

In this life, if you don't celebrate yourself, nobody will. — Kevin Smith

Oh, I'm online all the time now. I'm not an outdoorsy type. — Kevin Smith

I feel like if you're in Jersey, you have to be a Jersey Devils fan. Anybody born within the confines of the border of the state of New Jersey, I feel, should be a Jersey Devils fan. — Kevin Smith

People tend to romanticize this job. So, it's fun to let the air out of it. — Kevin Smith

I don't have to write to South West buddy. In an hour South West gonna come looking for me! — Kevin Smith

Im gonna try to pay for CLERKS III myself. As much as I love the crowd-funding model, thats an advancement in indie film that belongs to the next generation of artists. I started on my own dime, and if Im allowed, I should finish on my own dime. — Kevin Smith

There's a trick to being whatever you want to be in life. It starts with the simple belief that you are what or who you say you are. — Kevin Smith

In the face of such hopelessness as our eventual, unavoidable death, there is little sense in not at least trying to accomplish all of your wildest dreams in life. — Kevin Smith

Generally, I wake up, honestly it's creepy, but I wake up around 4:20. — Kevin Smith

You know, comics and movies, even if you take a comic and turn it into a movie, we can't all be Joss Whedon. — Kevin Smith

If you're alive, kick into drive. Chase whimsies. See if you can turn dreams into a way to make a living, if not an entire way of life. — Kevin Smith

I just love movies, so suddenly, you're political about movies, and that's dark. It's just not fun when something you love becomes calculated. — Kevin Smith

Happiness can't be bottled. It can't be smoked, swallowed, shot or ejaculated. And there is no end game: you never cross the finish line and are suddenly happy. Even when all your wildest dreams come true, you still pursue happiness. — Kevin Smith

Any book is a self-help guide if you can take something from it. — Kevin Smith

Whenever I'm not shooting, I'm in the editing room with my footage. While the crew is taking 15 minutes to an hour to set up the next shot, I'm behind the Avid, putting the flick together. — Kevin Smith

Live a "Why not?" life, man. Take the shot. The shot is always worth taking. — Kevin Smith

Storytelling is my currency. It's my only worth. The only thing of value I have in this life is my ability to tell a story, whether in print, orating, writing it down or having people acting it out. — Kevin Smith

When you're a filmmaker you're part of a very expensive art form. — Kevin Smith

Don't be afraid to do weird stuff, so long as you do it cheaply and cover everyone's bets. Be bold. Be stupid, if you have to: so long as you don't hurt anybody, what's it matter how dopey your dream is? If I hadn't made TUSK? If I'd let it die as a podcast? I wouldn't have three other movies I'm now making within the span of a year. Some folks will try to shame you for trying something outside the norm; the only shame is in not trying to accomplish your dreams. — Kevin Smith

The first few films I made didn't look good at all, and I wasn't trying to make them look good. People dig 'em because they like the content. — Kevin Smith

When are you people going to learn? It's not about who's right or wrong. No denomination's nailed it yet, and they never will because they're all too self-righteous to realize that it doesn't matter what you have faith in, just that you have faith. Your hearts are in the right place, but your brains need to wake up. I have issues with anyone who treats faith as a burden instead of a blessing. You people don't celebrate your faith; you mourn it. — Kevin Smith

I didn't get into film to win Academy Awards. I wanted to have a conversation with the audience. — Kevin Smith

I wanted to get my movie noticed WITHOUT spending any ad money. So I made a bit of a spectacle. I recorded lots of podcasts. I bickered with hate groups. I criticized critics. I banged pots together. I did everything I could to raise awareness without raising any money to do so. — Kevin Smith

There was never any down side to casting friends over professionals. It was always fun seeing folks who never performed before stretching their wings. — Kevin Smith

It's funny the things that go through your mind when you're getting the shit kicked out of you. As Bruce Willis' fist came crashing into my face, I thought about that old Shakespeare quote Father Bernard used to throw around back at Holy Name. Something about you only play with a lion when he's a frisky young cub, not when he's an old one, dying. Bruce knew when he agreed to work with me that his career was just about over. He was a lion, once, but now he was just an old one, dying. And I was the only guy around to blame. And man did his fist make that point. Repeatedly. — Kevin Smith

I know what it feels like to carry a lot of weight in a society that's very image-conscious. It's a thin person's world, and we try to navigate within it without being made fun of. — Kevin Smith

All these people who say success changes people; well, no, it just magnifies what's there. — Kevin Smith

The writer crafts their ideal world. In my world, everyone has really long conversations or just picks apart pop culture to death and everyone talks in monologue. — Kevin Smith

Dudes know I'm not a threat. Chicks know I'm not a threat. — Kevin Smith

I made a deal with myself that whenever I smoke weed, I have to be doing something productive: writing, recording, cutting a podcast, editing, etc. — Kevin Smith

BRODIE:
Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned for SEGA. — Kevin Smith

Haven't two hundred years of failed missionary work overseas taught anybody anything? You can't convert people to anything - whether religion, or something as inane as our flicks. — Kevin Smith

People are bursting out of the closet, rejecting their parents' wishes to keep the faith. Atheism is becoming mainstream. — Kevin Smith

In my spare time, I smoke acres of weed. — Kevin Smith

I try never to worry in general. Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt that never comes due. — Kevin Smith

In Hollywood you kind of fail upwards — Kevin Smith

Long time no see. I only pray the caliber of your questions has improved. — Kevin Smith

This is not an industry in which you curl up in a ball and shy away from the realities. It's a time to scream to the clouds that we're here and we've got great values and great prices. What better time to do that than the Super Bowl? — Kevin Smith

So often, over the course of our day-to-days, we forget the details of what shapes us most in life. Sure, we'll pay through the nose to have our weddings videotaped, but can we say the same thing about the first time we discovered masturbation, or the moment we realized that the true nature of the opposite sex is to lie and humiliate (and I'm not just talking about women here)? Usually not. — Kevin Smith

You know, there's a million fine looking women in the world, dude. But they don't all bring you lasagna at work. Most of 'em just cheat on you. (As Silent Bob) — Kevin Smith

Controversial' as we all know, is often a euphemism for 'interesting and intelligent. — Kevin Smith

We love dirty oral on the Down Low, but no going steady. — Kevin Smith

If there was no Internet, my career would have ended in 1995. — Kevin Smith

I'd see movies, comedies, and I loved 'Animal House', I loved all the John Hughes stuff, but I never saw me and my friends totally represented. — Kevin Smith

Failure is success training. — Kevin Smith

For years, my job was to make the movie inexpensively. And I could bring it in. What I can't control are the costs of marketing. — Kevin Smith

It takes nothing to encourage an artist. — Kevin Smith

So I know how I watch movies which is on my laptop, man. And that's how I suspect a lot of people do it. — Kevin Smith

From now on, any flick I'm ever involved with, I conduct critics screenings thusly: 'You wanna see it early to review it? Fine: pay like you would if you saw it next week.' — Kevin Smith

Everybody's got one killer story. It doesn't take talent to tell that story, it just takes experience. — Kevin Smith

Batman has an impeccable moral compass, he's clever and mysterious, and when fucktards get sassy, he punches them in the face. — Kevin Smith

It's not like someday my kid's gonna be standing over my grave, and somebody's gonna hang her a folded flag and say, 'You know what? This is 'cause he did 24 hours straight on Twitter.' But it's just one of those little personal victories, like, 'I wonder if I can do this.' And I did it. A stupid goal, but I accomplished it. Life's all about ... for me, at least ... having very stupid achievable goals. That way, you always feel like a winner. — Kevin Smith

I sympathize far more with heavier people than I ever will with thin. I'll never be thin. Let's be honest. — Kevin Smith

Sometimes the path you're on is not as important as the direction you're heading. — Kevin Smith

People always ask me if I hate the nuns. Do I make my movies extra dirty to piss them off? I always say no, that's not the point. To a Catholic, a movie is only dirty if it makes you want to have sex more. If it makes you feel sick, disgusted, ashamed of your own body, then it's not a dirty movie at all. It's a Catholic movie. And I make very Catholic movies. — Kevin Smith

And George Carlin was a guy that the more he aged the younger he seemed. — Kevin Smith

With what you don't know about me, I could just about fill the Grand Canyon. — Kevin Smith

I saw Richard Linklater's film 'Slacker' for my twenty-first birthday. That was the moment when it all seemed possible. This guy gave me hope. — Kevin Smith

Like its author, this book is dedicated to Jen Schwalbach - the gorgeous mother of my child, the seductive temptress who keeps me faithful, and the friend I've always had the most fun with. My best friend, even.
Also quite like the author, this book is additionally dedicated to Jen Schwalbach asshole.
Everything above also applies here, obviously, except the "mother of my child" part: referencing my kid and my wife's brown eye in the same sentiment might come off as crude or something.
(And I have a heart: Please don't go telling my kid you read in her old man's book that she's some kinda Butt-Baby. She's gonna have a hard enough time being Silent Bob's daughter - the daughter of the "Too Fat to Fly" guy.
Also: Pleas don't tell my daughter I dedicated tge vook to her mother's sphincter. That'd be weird) — Kevin Smith

My job is to say, 'This is how I see the world. Do you agree?' — Kevin Smith

People like to set the bar high. I like to put the bar on the ground and barely step over it. I like to keep the expectations really low. — Kevin Smith

T-shirts and long pants make me easier to find in a crowd, but also easy to disappear in a crowd because if I am wearing this and suddenly I am not, it's like a Harry Potter invisibility cloak. — Kevin Smith

I think the advent of the Internet gave us all a big boost, because by the time the Internet became mainstream and you could get it in your home, a lot of us were used to dealing in fan culture, writing to magazines or anything at the back of comic books. — Kevin Smith

It's kind of debatable whether or not the advertisement model is effective. Like whether Nielsen works. — Kevin Smith

AZRAEL:
No pleasure, no rapture, no exquisite sin greater ... than central air. — Kevin Smith

I'm always cribbing from real life. I'm not a very creative filmmaker. — Kevin Smith

More often than not, a hero's most epic battle is the one you never see; it's the battle that goes on within him or herself. — Kevin Smith

It's like a dream come true. When somebody is paying you to talk about yourself, you've won. — Kevin Smith

Life is also, as George Carlin taught us, a zero-sum game. We all lose in the end. We all die screaming. If that's the case, we might as well make for ourselves a paradise in this world. Make yourself happy and comfortable as often as you can, because sooner or later, the infinite hands you a bill for all these goods and services. What — Kevin Smith

Why take life seriously? No one gets out alive anyways. — Kevin Smith

I really would love to play a hannibal lector or PSYCO type character. — Kevin Smith

Only someone who doesn't understand art tells an artist their art somehow failed. How the fuck can art fail? Art can't be graded, because it's going to mean something different to everyone. You can't apply a mathematical absolute to art because there is no one formula for self-expression. — Kevin Smith

And the podcasting - I swear to you - on its worst day, the podcasts are better than our best films. Because they're more imaginative, and there's no artifice, and it's far more real. — Kevin Smith

There's something to be said for failing. It's not the failure you feel, it's the failure that people project when something disappoints. You're back to ground zero, where there's no expectations, and that's where I like to be. — Kevin Smith

It's a joyful thing, being a Catholic. I can't even think about sex without thinking about bodily waste. — Kevin Smith

Why do my movies make people feel so dead inside? — Kevin Smith

Indie film isn't dead, it just grew up. — Kevin Smith

Remember: It costs nothing to encourage an artist, and the potential benefits are staggering. A pat on the back to an artist now could one day result in your favorite film, or the cartoon you love to get stoned watching, or the song that saves your life. Discourage an artist, you get absolutely nothing in return, ever. — Kevin Smith

Don't go where the puck's been; go where it's gonna be — Kevin Smith

In anything I've ever written, all the characters sound like me, which I don't think is a bad thing. It makes sense. But I had always admired filmmakers who made movies that didn't sound like them at all. — Kevin Smith

You can have 10 bucks to 10 million bucks and if you got a crew, imagination and a lot of people willing to turn in some work next to nothing, you going to have a feature. But you can't get beyond how expensive marketing the movie is, it's so crushing. — Kevin Smith

Brodie Bruce:
You're gonna listen to me? To something I said!? Jesus, man, haven't I made it abundantly clear during the tenure of our friendship that I don't know shit? I mean half the time I'm just talking out of my ass ... or sticking my hand in it. — Kevin Smith

Based on the timely and helpful responses to my support issues, I feel that I made the right decision to become a customer earlier this year. LuxSci is definitely a quality, customer-oriented business. — Kevin Smith

I'm not even supposed to be here today. — Kevin Smith

Brodie Bruce:
I LOVE THE SMELL OF COMMERCE IN THE MORNING! — Kevin Smith

If you're lucky, you go from being a movie fan to a movie maker. — Kevin Smith

As human beings we govern our actions with our deepest fears. But if you name that shit, you claim that shit: let enough people into your closet and you'll find there's no more room for skeletons. Leave yourself nowhere to hide and you can live your life unguarded. — Kevin Smith

People have been telling me I'm a failure and that I'm doing it all wrong for 20 years now. Never trust anybody when they tell you how your story goes. You know your story. You write your own story. — Kevin Smith

If you grow up fat, you have to try harder. — Kevin Smith

GOD DOESN'T HATE FAGS OR
ANYBODY ELSE FOR THAT MATTER.
GOD SAVES! THEN, GOD PASSES IT
TO GRETZKY - WHO ROOFS THAT
SHIT, TOP-SHELF! THEN GOD AND
GRETZKY HIGH FIVE & BELLY-BUMP,
CELEBRATING THEIR HOCKEY
PROWESS. AND NEVER ONCE DO
THEY GIVE A SHIT IF ANYBODY'S
GAY OR NOT. — Kevin Smith

Don't let anybody tell you different, man: The main goal in life careerwise should always be to try to get paid to simply be yourself. — Kevin Smith

It's too expensive, that's the thing nobody wants to talk about. It is too expensive to make movies. That's not true, it is too expensive to market movies. Making movies is not. — Kevin Smith

I think it's better to have ideas. You can change an idea. Changing a belief is trickier. Life should malleable and progressive; working from idea to idea permits that. Beliefs anchor you to certain points and limit growth; new ideas can't generate. Life becomes stagnant. — Kevin Smith

The only thing of value I have in this life is my ability to tell a story, whether in print, orating, writing it down or having people acting it out. That's why I'm always hoping society never collapses because the first ones to go will be entertainers. — Kevin Smith

Don't bitch or punish the world: just create. Create something nobody's ever seen before and there is a good chance the world will notice you. Attacking teen girls on the internet is the saddest form of masturbation that exists and requires no discernible skill or talent. Because if you're not being useful in this world, you're being useless. Don't be useless: go make stuff that makes people happy. — Kevin Smith

Stop ... stop, that's the next generation of fans ... How dare you pass judgment on those 12-year-old girls who like vampires! They need to be encouraged because in six years they'll be 18-year-old girls who like vampires and are into all sorts of goth-permissive and whatnot. Don't Poo-poo it. There's a plan, and it's working. — Kevin Smith

I know you're supposed to tell kids not to do drugs, but, kids, do it! Do weed! Don't do the other stuff, but weed is good — Kevin Smith

Keep your focus on what YOU want to do - not what anyone else wants or is doing. You lose time watching others succeed. — Kevin Smith

I've always kind of ripped from real life to some degree or at least how I'm feeling in the moment. In fact, maybe that's really it. In anything I've ever written, all the characters sound like me, which I don't think is a bad thing. — Kevin Smith