Top 107 Quotes & Sayings by Kevin Smith - Page 2

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

It takes nothing to encourage an artist.

Failure is success training.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

In Hollywood you kind of fail upwards

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

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

My Father taught me how to be a man – and not by instilling in me a sense of machismo or an agenda of dominance. He taught me that a real man doesn’t take, he gives; he doesn’t use force, he uses logic; doesn’t play the role of trouble-maker, but rather, trouble-shooter; and most importantly, a real man is defined by what’s in his heart, not his pants.

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.

One of the reasons I always looked up to [George] Carlin is he looked like your grandfather but, acted like your best friend. Most of the adults in my world were adults and acted like adults and had job-type jobs and bills and pressures and stopped playing a long time ago. And George Carlin was a guy that the more he aged the younger he seemed. It was odd because he was still sagely and wise. But he was such a role model for me.

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

Is man, indeed, a walrus at heart?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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?

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

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

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.

Why do my movies make people feel so dead inside?

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.

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.

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.

Indie film isn’t dead. It just grew up.

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

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.

One man's frankness is another man's vulgarity.

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

I'm not even supposed to be here today.

In my spare time, I smoke acres of weed.

When are you people going to learn? It's not about who's right or wrong. No denomination's nailed it yet, 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.

Stoners are cute; junkies are sad.

My Father taught me to weigh my words carefully, and speak up only when I had something insightful to add to the proceedings, or something really funny to say. He also taught me that if I couldn’t be that kind of guy in real life, that I could earn a healthy living pretending to be that guy in the movies – particularly when paired up with a long haired stoner.

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.

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

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.