Lou Reed Quotations

Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony.

I think it's pretentious to create art just for the sake of stroking the artists ego.

I love Ornette Coleman. I love Don Cherry. I love the way those guys play.

I don't think anybody is anybody else's moral compass. Maybe listening to my music is not the best idea if you live a very constricted life. Or maybe it is.

I don't believe in dressing up reality. I don't believe in using makeup to make things look smoother.

There's a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out.

I was a product of Andy Warhol's Factory. All I did was sit there and observe these incredibly talented and creative people who were continually making art, and it was impossible not to be affected by that.

I wouldn't want to hear Beethoven without beautiful bass, the cellos, the tuba. It's very important. Hip-hop has thunderous bass. And so does Beethoven. If you don't have the bass, it's like being amputated. It's like you have no legs.

I think that everything happens for a reason, everything happens when it's going to happen.

I don't think I'm in any position to call myself a martial artist. I'm a student of the martial arts.

One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz.

I'm an artist and that means I can be as egotistical as I want to be.

One of my rules is: Never listen to your old stuff.

I'll tell ya, I'm a genuinely nice guy. I really am. A real nice guy. But I think I'm temperamental.

These are really terribly rough times, and we really should try to be as nice to each other as possible.

It's depressing when you're still around and your albums are out of print.

How can anybody learn anything from an artwork when the piece of art only reflects the vanity of the artist and not reality?

I don't know anyone actually who does care what a critic says.

In the late '70s I started to search for the perfect sound - whatever that might be, before that I was mainly interested in drugs, insanity and the rock'n'roll lifestyle.

But I'm also talented and I know when I created something great and Perfect Night is something great, no doubt, no but.

I think life is far too short to concentrate on your past. I rather look into the future.

I tried to give up drugs by drinking.

When I record an album I'm trying to get as close as possible to that perfect moment.

I always believed that I have something important to say and I said it.

I am very emotionally affected by sound. Sounds are the inexplicable... There is a sound you hear in your head, it's your nerves, or your blood running.

There's only X amount of time. You can do whatever you want with that time. It's your time.

That's why I survived because I still believe I've got something to say.

People think that I work out but it's all t'ai chi.

The music is all. People should die for it. People are dying for everything else, so why not the music?

You can't beat 2 guitars, bass, and drums.

The most important part of my religion is to play guitar.

Meditation doesn't have to be complicated. What I do is about as simple as you can get. You could just count the beads, one, two, three, with your eyes closed or open, whatever makes you happy.

Music should come crashing out of your speakers and grab you, and the lyrics should challenge whatever preconceived notions that listener has.

I can create a vibe without saying anything, just by being in the room.

Perfect Night is minimalistic and that's what makes it so forceful.

You're a musician: You play. That's what you do.

I don't know what goes on in the crowd. I've had them show up and throw beer cans at me. I caused riots in most of the major cities.

I can't do anything I want to. I mean, I can't have my own TV show. I can't have my own movie. But within my little world, nobody tells me what to put on the albums.

I've become completely well adjusted to being a cult figure.

I've never been super confident about anything. The work is never as good as it could be.

Some even claim that I'm a terror, a dictator and they're right.

I'm not joking around when I've said occasionally, trying to learn how to play a D chord properly has been a very big thing for me.

You can't beat two guitars, bass, and drums.

I'm writing about real things. Real people. Real characters. You have to believe what I write about is true or you wouldn't pay any attention at all. Sometimes it's me, or a composite of me and other people. Sometimes it's not me at all.

I don't mind a repetitive chorus; I mind repetitive verse. I mean, it's the same amount of space. Why would you have only three diamonds if you can have six?

If it has more than three chords, it's jazz.

I'm too old to do things by half

Perfect Night has that magic and it has the raw energy that grabs you by the throat.

You can't ask me to explain the lyrics because I won't do it.

I have no control over the audience. I have no idea what they think. My heart's pure. I can't do anything. I really can't do anything. I don't know what goes on in the crowd.

I wanted to be an actor. That was my real goal. But I wasn't any good at it, so I wrote my own material and acted through that. That's my idea of fun. I get to be all these things in the songs.

I cleaned up my act because otherwise I would have kicked the bucket.

I always thought martial arts was the most modern choreography we could have right now, and I always wanted to put it to music.

I don't like the word rock opera, but I'm trying to write on that level that's reserved for plays still, or novels.

I don't really think about what the subject of my next album will be. I just know that I'm going to make another album.

I'm in this business for too long to be halfhearted about anything.

Me, I've concentrated on music pretty much to the exclusion of other things.

Music was what bothered me, what interested me.

The first generation of CDs sounded terrible. Any chance to remaster would make the music sound better than what was already out there.

Sound is more than just noise. Ordered sound is music. My life is music.

When I was in college, I had a jazz radio show. I called it 'Excursion on a Wobbly Rail,' after a Cecil Taylor song. I used to run around the Village following Ornette Coleman wherever he played.

For a while, I felt a little self-impelled to write Lou Reed Kind of songs. I should have understood that a Lou Reed song was anything I wanted to write about.

For the truly obsessive, they can get the original Poe. I amplify it. I think it's more understandable.

He's a great guy, absurdly talented, and he seemed ready to sing. It's these parts he can come up with, these ways of double tracking, these really unusual harmonies - I could listen to Antony all day.

My week beats your year.

When I first heard him I knew I was in the presence of an angel,

We once did an album with a pop painter, ... because we wanted to help him out.

Raymond Chandler managed to write about L.A. his whole career. Should I keep going writing about New York? Is that what I should be doing? Songwriting doesn't work that way.

Oh, it's such a perfect day, I'm glad I spend it with you,

So all those kids out there who think mix and match is really great, you don't know what you're talking about, ... I'm a professional. I do this for a living.

I like to think of us as Clearasil on the face of the nation. Jim Morrison would have said that if he was smart, but he's dead.

I read that script. It's one of the most disgusting, foul things I've seen -- by any illiterate retard -- in a long time. There's no limit to how low some people will go to write something to make money.

His amazing band contributes to one extraordinary experience of musical wit, depth and, most of all, beauteous heart.

People didn't know certain things about me, which... I was out of creative writing class in school, Syracuse University; had a B.A. in English and wanted to write the great American novel but I also loved rock and roll. I was in bar bands all through college, playing fraternities and have to know all the songs in the top 10. That kind of thing.

As you practice things, you get better. I mean I've worked very hard on changing my life and taking what is good about it and trying to jettison the things I think were not good about it. I think the key word is "discipline," focus. I'm always working at it, but I'm not always successful.

I write whatever shows up. That's good enough for me. I'm part of the first generation that wants to still do original material and not tour around as an oldies act.

When critics ask you if you feel vindicated by other critics - I didn't like critics then, and I don't like them now. There you go. I've always been outside the mainstream, and it stayed that way.

The gay people know where I'm at. Straight people may not know where I'm at, but they find it kind of interesting when they show up and see what is sitting around them.

To debate political objectives, views, and goals is the most American thing conceivable.

One thing I've often thought is that I never want to tell anybody else what to do. It's hard enough to figure out what I want to do.

Music is an amazing thing. I don't know if we really think about it the same way we consider a painting an amazing thing. I mean, a painting is, in quotes, imaginary. There is nothing on the canvas when you start; and writing a song, there is nothing there when you start.

Research, research, research. It means everything.

I never liked the Beatles. I thought they were garbage.

I've gone out with my shotgun. This is hunting country out there. You better run.

I'd breed a little liberal army in the wood, just like these redneck lunatics I see at the local bar with their tribe of mutant inbred piglets.

The president's dead, no one can find his head, its been missing for two weeks. But no one seemed to notice it.

The heart says what only the heart knows.

Speaking in a common tongue, speaking through guitars and drums.

She never ever lost her head even when she was giving head.

Plucked her eyebrows on the way, shaved her legs and then he was a she. She said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side.

I can't tell the difference between wrong and right, are you laughing at me?

Psychologically, it's better that I think that I'm dirt.

Caroline says as she gets up from the floor, you can hit me all you want to, but I don't love you anymore.

I dreamed that I was young and smart, and it was not a waste. I dreamed that there was a point of life, and to the human race.

Teach them about anger, the sin that comes with dawning. Teach them about flowers, and the beauty of forgiveness.

Senator, it has been reported that you have had illegal congress with your mother.

Underachievers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose except your fright.

Dear Pope, send me some hope or a rope.

When you pass through the fire, you pass through humble.

The music business doesn't interest me anymore.