Kevin Smith quotes:

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

I've always kind of ripped from real life to some degree or at least how I'm feeling in the moment.

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

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)

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

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.

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."

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

In Hollywood you just fail upwards.

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.

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

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.

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.

Stoners are cute; junkies are sad.

Is man indeed a walrus at heart?

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.

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.'

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I say what other people won't.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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

I liked hockey, and I still like hockey.

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.

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

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.

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

I'm not even supposed to be here today.

In Hollywood you kind of fail upwards

In my spare time, I smoke acres of weed.

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

It takes nothing to encourage an artist.

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.

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

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

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.

More often than not, a heroâ??s most epic battle is the one you never see; itâ??s the battle that goes on within him or herself.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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?

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.

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

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.

When you're an artist, all you're trying to do is self-express.

Why do my movies make people feel so dead inside?

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

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