Quotes

[on the hoopla over homosexual slurs in Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back (2001)] "Gay or straight has never been a big issue with me. Sex is sex, as far as I'm concerned. Some cats dig on the opposite gender, and some cats dig on their own. Sexual identity will always be as mystifying as why The Dukes of Hazzard (1979) was once the number one television show in our country: there's no point in getting bent out of shape about it; it just IS. Some cats will always gravitate toward "Daisy Duke", and some will always pine over Boss Hogg".

They're like, 'I can't believe Kevin Smith gets into comics, and all he can do is a superhero comic.' Well, that's what I want to do.

I wasn't disappointed by Star Wars: Episode I - The Phantom Menace (1999). I know a lot of people were but I was one of those cats who wasn't. You go in with low expectations, or not expecting it to bring you right back to the days of your youth, but it's kind of a fun movie.

The Jay character is kind of based on who Jason was when he was about 14 years old. In the movies he's a bit more well spoken than he was at that age. Silent Bob - there is no affiliation to myself. I needed a guy to stand next to Jay and not say much, being that Jason was going to be saying a lot. - on resemblances between real life and his characters.

On considering dropping out of The Green Hornet (2011) film (August 19, 2004): "Right after Jersey Girl (2004) came out and kind of underperformed, I was just like, "I got no business making large-budget movies". I should always make movies that cost less than 10 million bucks... I just don't think somebody like me should be in charge of big-budget movies. I'm too interested in dialogue, and dialogue and big budgets just don't blend very well".

[In response to Tim Burton claiming he doesn't read comics] Well that would explain Batman (1989).

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.

Each flick I've done is kind of a snapshot of where I was in my life when I wrote it; Clerks II (2006) really speaks to where I am in life at the moment. You don't have to be an analyst to look at the movie and go, "The Quick Stop means a little more than the Quick Stop, and Florida represents something more than just going to Florida". That's kind of where I am. There's definitely something bittersweet about arriving at Clerks II (2006).

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. 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. After something like Mallrats (1995) or Jersey Girl (2004), the expectations are in the toilet. People are like, "He's over, he's done". So it's easier to be, like, "Ta-da, I'm not". It's a much more comfortable place to work from. When you have an escalating career, and every time you have to outdo yourself, I couldn't handle that kind of pressure. But having to outdo Jersey Girl (2004)? Not very difficult.

I once wrote a horror screenplay for my friend Vincent to make when he was in high school that was close to Ingmar Bergman's The Seventh Seal (1957) (aka "The Seventh Seal"). Very psychological horror stuff. A lot of the religious elements in the script ended up in Dogma (1999).

It wasn't the first comic I ever actually READ, but the first comic I remember slapping down hard-earned money for was a 'Superman Family' Annual in which the first story featured a married Lois and Superman waking up on a cloud. I remember being oddly aroused by the whole thing. I mean, the implication was that these two were fucking.

I was a fan of the Daredevil and Green Arrow characters, so it seemed logical to write them. Now I'm kind of interested in taking obscure characters and seeing if we can turn them into top ten books. I mean, DD and GA had somewhat built-in audiences, so there was a basis to work from. But could we take a Doctor Strange book and put that in the top ten? That'd be a fun challenge.

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. 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.

(On Slacker (1990)) It was the movie that got me off my ass; it was the movie that lit a fire under me, the movie that made me think, "Hey, I could be a filmmaker." And I had never seen a movie like that before ever in my life.

[on making Red State (2011)] Look at all these beautiful people making this movie, cinching their belts and doing it for next-to-nothing. Ben (Affleck) recently sent me an email going 'Dude, I don't know how you make this for four million bucks. It doesn't look like a four-million-dollar movie'. That's because nobody got paid, dude.

[on cinematographer David Klein] I'm not much of a sports guy, but I do like hockey very much, and they say great lines always find each other. Same thing with Klein. He can finish a visual sentence that I can start to express but can't finish. It just makes me laugh - I became a better filmmaker standing next to the same knuckleheaded kid I'd met in film school years ago.

[on involving himself with online podcasts] If I'm a white noise in your life, if I'm this background voice that's comforting to know it's there, I could go a lot farther than I ever could've gone with film. I can go weird places with you - in the bathroom, on the bus on the worst plane ride of your life. You can't demand that the audience do 'appointment viewing' anymore. You have to make it as easy and accessible as possible.

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. That's why I'm always hoping society never collapses because the first ones to go will be entertainers.

[on Paul Thomas Anderson and Magnolia (1999)] I'll never watch it again, but I will keep it. I'll keep it right on my desk, as a constant reminder that a bloated sense of self-importance is the most unattractive quality in a person or their work.

I liked Bryan Singer's Superman Returns (2006). I thought in honoured the Dick Donner versions, but what I've seen from Man of Steel (2013) has pulled me right in. There is one moment where Superman is speeding Lois Lane away from danger and we get a glimpse of her face, and to me it looks like she's saying, 'If this dude slows down we are dead'. If you can show me something that beautiful that brings me as close to the comic book experience as humanly possible, you've got my money.

[on Reese Witherspoon] She's a dick. I was at some party with Joey Lauren Adams and Reese had just got a part Joey was hoping to get. So Joey said, 'Hey Reese, I just wanted to say congratulations. I think you'll do really great with the part.' And Reese just gave this dead-eyed look and was like, 'Whatever...' What a f**king douchebag. At this point she wasn't even the Reese Witherspoon that everybody mistakenly knows and loves. She was Reese Witherspoon circa S.F.W. (1994). To have that kind of attitude back then; I guess she was meant for stardom.

[on directing Bruce Willis in Cop Out (2010)] He turned out to be the unhappiest, most bitter, and meanest emo-bitch I've ever met at any job I've held down. And mind you, I've worked at Domino's Pizza. [from his memoir "Tough Sh-t"]

[on Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (2016)] Remember before when we were talking about The Flash (2014), and that it has heart, humor, and spectacle. The movie I felt like didn't really have a heart. It was certainly fucking humorless, there was nothing funny going on in that world whatsoever, but it had lots of spectacle. Like you can't take that away from Zack Snyder. Boy, he knows how to like compose a frame and how to setup a shot. Beautiful visual stylist but you need more than just the pictures, you need like characterization and these characters seemed off character, particularly Superman. [2016]

[on Zack and Miri Make a Porno (2008)'s disappointing box office performance] I was depressed, man. I wanted that movie to do so much better. I'm sitting there thinking, 'That's it, that's it, I'm gone, I'm out. The movie didn't do well and I killed Seth Rogen's career! This dude was on a roll until he got in with the likes of me. I'm a career killer! Judd's [Judd Apatow] going to be pissed, the whole Internet's going to be pissed because they all like Seth, and the only reason they like me anymore is because I was involved with Seth! And now I fuckin' ruined that. It was like high school. I was like, 'I'm a dead man. I'll be the laughing stock.'

[on criticism he received for casting his wife in Clerks 2]Generally I cast friends in all the time and why wouldn't I cast my best friend?