Top 107 Quotes & Sayings by Kevin Smith
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American director Kevin Smith.
Last updated on September 18, 2024.
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.
People wanted more advice. So I finally thought I could totally put this advice into a book.
I grew up in a pretty gay world - my brother's gay and he's been married to a man for 20 years, which is like 60 in straight-people years.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Indie film isn't dead, it just grew up.
All these people who say success changes people; well, no, it just magnifies what's there.
It's kind of debatable whether or not the advertisement model is effective. Like whether Nielsen works. For years, Nielsen has been based on sampling. It's not like an electronic bullet that hits your house that tells the people at networks at all times what you're watching.
If you grow up fat, you have to try harder.
When you're an artist, all you're trying to do is self-express.
Everybody's got one killer story. It doesn't take talent to tell that story, it just takes experience.
In Hollywood you just fail upwards.
Generally, I wake up, honestly it's creepy, but I wake up around 4:20.
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.
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.
I say what other people won't.
When you're a filmmaker you're part of a very expensive art form.
Any book is a self-help guide if you can take something from it.
It's like a dream come true. When somebody is paying you to talk about yourself, you've won.
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.
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.
If there was no Internet, my career would have ended in 1995.
It's silly that anyone in this world tells you that there are only certain people that can marry you.
The older you get, the more you realize you cannot win on the Internet.
You know, comics and movies, even if you take a comic and turn it into a movie, we can't all be Joss Whedon.
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.
It's taken me 15 years to step behind a camera and make something everyone agrees looks like a movie.
I sympathize far more with heavier people than I ever will with thin. I'll never be thin. Let's be honest.
It's kind of debatable whether or not the advertisement model is effective. Like whether Nielsen works.
I liked hockey, and I still like hockey.
I always wanted to see if I could sell a movie to the public without doing any marketing because my philosophy was like, 'Hey man, I'm reaching my audience everyday. I'm twittering with them. I'm in direct contact with them on the podcast.'
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.
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.
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.
I think: 'Wouldn't it be great to work with Bill Murray?' And then I'm like, 'You know what, just appreciate Bill Murray from afar, don't find out that maybe he's not the dude you want to work with.'
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.
Dudes know I'm not a threat. Chicks know I'm not a threat.
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.
Long time no see. I only pray the caliber of your questions has improved.
I didn't get into film to win Academy Awards. I wanted to have a conversation with the audience.
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.'
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.
I've always kind of ripped from real life to some degree or at least how I'm feeling in the moment.
Other filmmakers make their movies and put them out and that's that. For me, for some odd reason, it goes deeper than that.
If you're lucky, you go from being a movie fan to a movie maker.
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.
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.
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.
Oh, I'm online all the time now. I'm not an outdoorsy type.
And George Carlin was a guy that the more he aged the younger he seemed.
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.
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.
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.
Keep your focus on what YOU want to do - not what anyone else wants or is doing. You lose time watching others succeed.
Live a "Why not?" life, man. Take the shot. The shot is always worth taking.
I try never to worry in general. Worry is interest paid in advance on a debt that never comes due.
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.
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.
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