Kevin Smith Quotations

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 silly that anyone in this world tells you that there are only certain people that can marry you.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Dudes know I'm not a threat. Chicks know I'm not a threat.

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

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

It's taken me 15 years to step behind a camera and make something everyone agrees looks like a movie.

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.

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.

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.

If you grow up fat, you have to try harder.

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.'

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

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.

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

I liked hockey, and I still like hockey.

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.

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

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

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

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.

The older you get, the more you realize you cannot win on the Internet.

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 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.'

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

People wanted more advice. So I finally thought I could totally put this advice into a book.

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

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

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.'

We wrestled well enough to win the tournament, but we were rusty at times. We have to clean some things up and correct some errors. We didn't wrestle as well as we should have in certain matches, but we'll fix that.

We decided to approach IAM after a rigorous search across the industry. They have exactly the combination of history, people and performance to bring critical mass to our fund of hedge funds business.

The fact it's repeatedly passed Chairman Pombo's committee would advocate for a vote, as would the fact the CNMI is the only U.S. territory without nonvoting representation.

When times are tough like this, and they certainly are challenging, it's not a time to recoil or retreat from the situation. You've got to be strong, and you've got to play your plan out as best you can.

We're confident we have the votes to pass this bill, and we believe it should be scheduled as soon as possible.

We're confident many Democrats will support the bill when it comes up for a vote.

Now you've gotta spend two thousand bucks to stay at my house. And for five, I'll let you photograph my wife in the shower.

People wanted answers. We were trying to give them the best answers available at the time.

On one hand I'll stand up there and think I'm a pretty good storyteller but it has everything to do with the audience. Invariably, I get people telling me that I should do stand-up. Stand-ups generate their own material, but I'm up there answering questions and they lob me softballs.

On the other hand, if students are attending classes and the school closes, they would be forgiven the loans and the grants.

He himself has brought our family closer together. There's almost 30 out here for each of his games against Michigan and Ohio State with his uncles, aunts and cousins.

We're proud of the boys and competed hard. If we play like we did in the first and fourth quarters, then we'll have a chance tonight.

We've gone from getting blown out to being competitive every game. We're not playing like a 5-13 team but like a 13-5 team, and that says something about the character of this team. Character will take you a long way.

He's a leader by example. He's not real verbal but he plays hard. He's always where he is supposed to be. He always does what I ask him to do. And when he does that, the other guys follow him. He knows the team is watching, so he always gives everything his best.

He was one of the top guards, not only for us but for the school district.

Just like everybody else is doing, we're going to have to cut back on the amount of overlays that we do.

I think it's kind of brutal that they don't even have enough food to facilitate the volunteers. You'd think in a city like Toronto, with all the wealth, we'd be able to donate enough food for everyone.

I think this is the worst game we ever played since the season has started. Even though we were down in the first half we still had enough composure to not get upset and play our game.

I think they've been doing a very good job. I think it would be detrimental to the medical center if the Pitts Management group were to leave right now.

Pension reform is a big priority and today's events don't change that.

Our guesses are that the students we lost were those who cannot find housing. The rental property and apartments were hit very hard by the storm, and a lot of students left and were unable to return to finish the fall semester, and in some cases did not return to this date.

Many dealers have their early months' allocations of Escalades pre-sold, and the vehicles that aren't pre-sold are sold within a few days.

Looking at how quickly development is occurring and moving southward, we need to get the street done as soon as possible.

I won't say I have all the answers, but I've got an open mind and will listen to what people have to say.

I think I'm gonna finish up the stuff I've already committed to and then take a little break, 'cuz I just don't want people to get tired of me.

We played hard and it was a good win for us.

We don't close streets in Sioux Falls very often. We're having to plow routes over and over. As soon as we plow, snow drifts fall immediately behind them.

With all the investment that's going to happen in the area, we thought it was a good time to consider making some changes.

We had a lot of people who placed. We won a couple of third-place matches that were really beneficial to us.

We have a lot of problems that we're going to be improving. Our plan is to cul-de-sac North Drive off. We're going to terminate the crossover. That's not the way we want North Cliff to function.

We have had no opposition and have been totally in support of the operation of the club for the last four years. We have no desire to close them down as a business. We do have a desire to not see that business change.

We have to wrestle better than we did (Saturday) if we want to do well in that tournament. But we're capable of that. We're just going to work on the mental aspect of the sport and keeping people healthy.

We know that based on the Lewis and Clark costs and our capital costs, this probably isn't the last rate increase in the next 10 years.

We're not saying we're a sequel. No, no, no.

We used full court man-to-man defense and was able to outscore them 18-6 in the fourth quarter. It was an awfully good game.

We understand that some students will not be able to be here due to circumstances beyond their control even after the university is able to open its doors again. We will make every effort to assist these students with their matriculation.

We knew we had a chance to win the tournament, but were the number five seed. The boys did what they were told to do, and we are very proud of them. They deserve the tournament championship.

We like to do about 125 blocks. But if it looks like the prices are going to stay up here we'll just have to reduce the amount overall that we do.

We have great depth across the board. We had a top athlete or two in each of the event areas.

We put so much of ourselves on DVD that people expect that you are responsible for every aspect about the DVD. I've gotten complaints about the pricing! . . . My call is the content, and even that gets reined in sometimes.

We're treating all these games as district games. We've got one home game during districts and after that it's on the road or neutral. This is a good challenge for us.

The president of HCI has worked pretty hard to resolve problems that have been brought to him.

Both the House and Senate pension bills represent the most comprehensive pension reforms in a generation, so a responsible transition period for employers to meet the new, stricter rules is appropriate.

Weve got two equally spectacular concerts lined up, and we cant wait for the music to start,

We got another nursing home call, in New Orleans, where we were told there were 30 patients, and when we got there, there were 30 in body bags lined up outside.

We try to balance inside and out so that we don't rely on just one thing. It's basically whoever is getting their shot to fall is who gets the ball.

We will track the hurricane, and the information we receive from the experts (Jefferson County authorities) will help us make a better decision.

We are strongly for families, for marriages, for individuals, for children. We believe a sexually oriented business in our community runs in direct conflict with those values.

Every hour that he's on the loose is another hour he could hurt somebody. So we need to do everything we can to find him, and we are.

At this point I am very happy to say we're within sight of our goal. There are a few final companies who are gearing up for their campaigns, and we are really counting on them to push us over the top.

There?s no doubt that this is going to happen. This is an inevitability.