Cameron Crowe Quotations

And I liked that whole idea that energy comes from not disseminating your ideas and talking about them.

I always loved movies, but I never thought I would presume to be a screenwriter and definitely not a director.

I think there's always satisfaction that comes from digging in and telling a story and being on the front line and writing about it. I think there's a venue available if you look. Even print journalism is in good shape in areas.

I have my problems with 'Singles'. To me, 'Singles' is the least successful of the movies I've been lucky enough to make.

I always wanted to tell the story of how Pearl Jam is the story of lightning striking twice. As well as being the flipside of the classic rock tale where great promise ends in tragedy. This is where tragedy begins great promise.

Great music is its own movie, already. And the challenge, as a music fan, is to keep the song as powerful as it wants to be, to not tamper with it and to somehow give it a home.

In the future, everybody is going to be a director. Somebody's got to live a real life so we have something to make a movie about.

Making a big Hollywood film that really affects people is as hard as making a small movie on a credit card.

People dance and we have a lot of music and... this might be the closet I get for a while.

I'm always writing. A friend of mine once said, 'You avoid re-writing by writing.' Which is kind of a good point, because re-writing seems to be mostly about craft, and writing is just, like, getting out your passion on a piece of paper.

I'm proudest of the fact that I've been able to make a few movies in the studio system that are slightly unorthodox and personal. But it's never quite as easy as you dream that it could be.

It's more like can I build a group of characters and can I tell some universal truths that feel real and aren't formulaic in the spirit of filmmakers gone by who've told American stories that were personal and universal as well.

Some of the hip-hop stuff people get into is exciting, because there's a passion and there's something to explain to a more mainstream audience, so you get these passionate writers who want to express their love for rap and hip-hop, which is cool.

I think sometimes good sentimentality is fun when it's balanced.

I've been out doing signings and talking to a lot of people, and I'm just really grateful.

'Elizabethtown' was a movie made for all the right reasons, and people who connect with the movie really connect to it. It's not the biggest group of people ever, but I still really believe in 'Elizabethtown.' It wasn't, like, a savage blow.

I don't think people are ever going to a place where they're like, 'I'm over stories about character and love.'

People are going to go where they get characters that they remember.

I mean, Internet radio, which is basically a guy with his iTunes putting it over the computer, is the only way you're going to get true eclectic music programmed.

I try and direct environmentally, so that people don't feel like everything is going to depend on what happens when someone says, 'action,' so that they can literally be swimming in the warm water, and at some point the race begins, and at some point the race ends, but it is about being free to swim.

Probably having fallen in love with music and movies at a young age and then first learning about writing by kind of following the path of writers like Dave Marsh and Lester Bangs and being a rock journalist.

Well it kind of is project to project because as a writer I think you always write to some degree about things that you know or things that happened - but my favourite filmmakers, my favourite movies of theirs tend to be the personal movies.

The powering thing behind the movie was to capture the feeling of being alone and going back to Kentucky and getting walloped by a sense of family I hadn't realized was so much in place,

The personal stuff for me is the best, ... And this one felt a little raw emotionally. I wanted to capture some stuff, to see if I could get it right. The way it feels to lose a loved one and find a reason to celebrate, oddly enough, as a result of learning who you are.

Tom's dad also passed away when he was a young man and he had that history of feeling he never really knew him properly - so he just seemed like the best guy to work with on this one,

Many people don't have an outlet for their feelings or how they can express life and not everybody in a relationship is the kind of person who wants to. But if you can write, you can find a good way to do it.

That's how I am as a director - if somebody does a really good take, I can't help it, I'm not even aware of it. Actors really, really need positive reinforcement.

What you believe one day isn't what you believe the next day and I think every writer secretly believes that they may never be able to do write good song or script again, but they can.

I always loved song writers who wrote songs in the first person, so it's kind of like that.

There's several ways to be a journalist. One way is to be combative and take the person to task and what you have is a portrait of somebody defending themselves, which is interesting. The other thing is to slip into their world and really be a representative for all the people that love the experience of that artist, and have them get so comfortable that you become invisible and they're themselves.

Sometimes things you write are messages to yourself. Even though I think my stuff has a particular voice because you are who you are, it's good to switch it up, professionally and personally. The dare to be great situation is always going to be the one that matters the most.

If you try to write something that's memorable, you'll never get it. Sometimes it's the way the actor says the words that make it memorable.

When you listen to the music, you can also see the film or read the article, and it's all part of the same journey that you get to take with the artist you're interested in. It's a balancing act.

Take it from your own life, write what you believe in.

My dream is to do exactly what I'm doing. I love writing and directing, and being somebody that can write about an artist I love or make a film about it. That's great. I would leave the other stuff to those who do it much better.

You will never know the exquisite pain of the guy who goes home alone. Cause without the bitter, baby, the sweet ain't as sweet.

Time puts things in proper perspective.

I wanted to make a comment on the obsession with success and failure that we see a lot in America.

The future isn't just something that happens. It's a brutal force, with a great sense of humor, that'll steamroll you if you're not watching.

So many of us are hungry for stories with more racial diversity, more truth in representation, and I am anxious to help tell those stories in the future.

I wanted to follow the path of music and feel that power, and I couldn't turn back.

RRC remains the best publication to hit my mailbox

Be positive, be positive. It's rough out there, but don't succumb. Don't succumb to the cynicism in the world.

I'm impossible to forget, but I'm hard to remember.

I just love when a movie takes a break and gives you a poetic moment, but sometimes it's good when they just happen randomly. If your actors are really comfortable and you let the camera roll, sometimes things happen and you just see something that's visually iconic, or emotionally that way.

We tried to present an emotional scrapbook of what it felt like to be a band member on this 20-year journey.

Hey, I don't have all the answers. In life, to be honest, I've failed as much as I've succeeded. But I love my wife. I love my life. And I wish you, my kind of successes.

You just never know if people out there will relate to things when you write them; it matters to you, and to some people it doesn't. Some people are 'I'm not in the mood for that; thanks.'

I have heard your words and your disappointment, and I offer you a heart-felt apology to all who felt this was an odd or misguided casting choice.

I always tell the girls never take it seriously, if you never take it seriously you never get hurt, if you never get hurt you always have fun, and if you ever get lonely just go to the record store and visit your friends.

The power of music is still with me, every day. It's one of the most inspiring things available in the world.

Optimism is a revolutionary act

TORONTO -- When Cameron Crowe was flying to the Toronto film festival recently, he walked down the aisle of the plane and studied his fellow passengers sitting in front of their personal TV sets. They were just having the greatest time, there was so much joy in their eyes, .. And I looked to see what they were watching. And it was all out-and-out comedies. So many people watching The Longest Yard. And I just got the feeling that, 'You know what? People just like to let it all go, and have a laugh'.

The battered idealist. It's just my favorite character ... To me, a hero is somebody who is able to accept the environment of the world, deal with the stuff that's thrown in their path ... and somehow keep their heart.

I write with music. I write scenes in movies that hopefully can earn the use of some songs that are powerful to me.

I try and direct environmentally . So that people don't feel like everything is going to depend on what happens when someone says, 'Action'. So that they can literally be swimming in the warm water and at some point the race begins, and at some point the race ends, but it is about being free to swim.

Every passing minute is another chance to turn it all around.

She's an old soul. You will find her to be one of the more mature 23-year-olds on the planet.

She loves Susan Sarandon and I know my dad (would have loved) being married to Susan Sarandon, ... Susan said she learned more about how to play the part from talking to my mom than to me.

nobody gets a free ride. And nobody should get a free ride.

Music is such an inspiration to me. I love it when it completes a story, along with the words and image,

Music is like the other person in this film and it's really important for Orlando's character. It leads him on his journey and is with him on his road trip.

I was fortunate to work with actors who loved music too. Just seeing what it would do to their manner and their faces was great and it helped give the story a little more soul.

I loved her audition/work session. Her emotions were so close to the surface,

I have a desire to work with some actors I really like, so I hope to get out there soon and be back at it - maybe a little less music in the next one.

I felt his presence every day, beginning with the first day.

I felt like I was seeing it with the audience it was made for,

I always thought I'd write about my dad, at some point, ... I didn't think it would be like this, but it arrived like this. I'd been listening to a lot of Garrison Keillor at the time. I love that simple story that ends on a grace note and you go, 'Wow, I'm just happy to be alive right now.' That was the feeling I was chasing.

I always loved those early Elton John albums. I sort of keep going back there,

There are so many different themes and characters and worlds within the movie. Lo and behold, we find that the editing of all those little strains in a movie can be really difficult. I didn't want to start cutting out characters wholesale and savaging the many different performances. Over time, showing the movie became the only way to figure out how it was all rhythmically working.

There are so many different themes and characters and worlds within the movie, ... Lo and behold, we find that the editing of all those little strains in a movie can be really difficult. I didn't want to start cutting out characters wholesale and savaging the many different performances. Over time, showing the movie became the only way to figure out how it was all rhythmically working.

It blew my mind, ... There were two girls who acted out the poster of the movie. They had a little red sofa by the side of the road. One was dressed up in a black suit like Orlando with a black wig and an urn. And the other was Kirsten with the champagne glass and her legs crossed; it was so sweet. I was truly in shock.

I was certainly more vulnerable, in a sense, but I also felt more open to it, ... Elizabethtown.

I think that fate has a really good sense of humor, ... We had come from Toronto where people had given us a standing ovation, and the public screening had gone really well, but then afterward you hear, well, the press -- there was a less adoring reaction.

Life sends you angels sometimes when you're in need and, in my theory, it's usually never the people you expect to be there. They are often gone the people that appear with a piece of advice or something they want to give to you to help you through are generally surprising people and I wanted Kirsten's character to be that.

People always complain that movies are all the same and that ticket buyers are voting and saying, 'No more,'

I wonder if I had gone for laughter and tears from the start how sad (the movie) would've been.

It felt like a faraway place that was still home,

Well all kinds of movies that you wouldn't expect that I'd want to do, both bigger scale and smaller scale than the ones I've done.

Mostly it was about the success of the shoe: Does the shoe come back? I had to look at it without that scene,

Wilder would say, 'Ninety minutes for this picture is all my bum can take in a seat',

The question is where do we go from here? The answer is -- life.

We used music in the film to create an environment. It made it feel like we were telling our story with a little extra -- a little extra soul.

Tom and I have a similar sensibility and experience. You know his dad was from Kentucky where I set the film, and so was mine. That's where he died. His mom's really important in his life and so is mine,

Billy Wilder once told me, 'Make 'em personal,' ... 'But make 'em for the people.'

And yeah, she would put 'Pride (In the Name of Love)' on it. You do go for some obvious stuff when you make a mix tape because it reinvents itself.

The thing was always, as every story you write has a built-in problem, was: Was it too personal. That was the thing I wondered about for a long time. Oddly enough, it's often the personal stuff that people come up to you later and say about it, 'I can't believe you put that in a movie. That happened to me.' And sometimes, the thing that you make up happened to no one.

I wanted it to feel like a short story, but it's a long short story,

Orlando was the first guy I thought of because we'd done a commercial together and I just liked him -- every take was different.

Orlando's character, at the beginning of the movie, is defining success and failure. But then life comes along and trumps that.

Ashton was one of the guys I talked to who I really liked.

This is a personal movie that I knew I had to come here to make,

The whimsical side of my dad really comes through in this movie.

This is the type of publicity that a community our size just could not pay for.

I told them, 'Don't even think about the camera. It may not even be near you. Just have the party.' And then there's somebody in the middle of them shooting film.

Not that I took it as a fiasco at the time, but no one saw 'Almost Famous' in the theaters,

I told everyone I would bring (the movie) back,

I've done some of the same things that Orlando does in the movie, for sure,

It used to be, like, the sanctity of rock was that you could never let a song of yours be used in a commercial. It was like, 'Oh man, we'll never let our music be exploited that way.' Now they'll call you up and say, 'You gotta use this song in your movie, man. It's the new VW ad! People love it.' And you realize, boy, have times changed.

I turned around and she kind of had some tears in her eyes.