Lou Reed
The most important part of my religion is to play guitar.Collection: Religion
Music should come crashing out of your speakers and grab you, and the lyrics should challenge whatever preconceived notions that listener has.Collection: Music
I think life is far too short to concentrate on your past. I rather look into the future.Collection: Future
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 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?
You're a musician: You play. That's what you do.
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.
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.
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.
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.
One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz.
There's a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out.
Take a walk on the wild side.
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.
People think that I work out but it's all t'ai chi.
If it has more than three chords, it's jazz.
I don't like nostalgia unless it's mine.
There's only X amount of time. You can do whatever you want with that time. It's your time.
You can't beat two guitars, bass, and drums.
My God is rock'n'roll.
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.
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'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.
You can't ask me to explain the lyrics because I won't do it.
Sound is more than just noise. Ordered sound is music. My life is music.
I tried to give up drugs by drinking.
Some even claim that I'm a terror, a dictator and they're right.
The music is all. People should die for it. People are dying for everything else, so why not the music?
Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony.
I don't know anyone actually who does care what a critic says.
These are really terribly rough times, and we really should try to be as nice to each other as possible.
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 think that everything happens for a reason, everything happens when it's going to happen.
I'm an artist and that means I can be as egotistical as I want to be.
I can create a vibe without saying anything, just by being in the room.
I'm too old to do things by half.
One of my rules is: Never listen to your old stuff.
I cleaned up my act because otherwise I would have kicked the bucket.
That's why I survived because I still believe I've got something to say.
I think it's pretentious to create art just for the sake of stroking the artists ego.
I always thought martial arts was the most modern choreography we could have right now, and I always wanted to put it to music.
It's depressing when you're still around and your albums are out of print.
Me, I've concentrated on music pretty much to the exclusion of other things.
I don't think I'm in any position to call myself a martial artist. I'm a student of the martial arts.
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'll tell ya, I'm a genuinely nice guy. I really am. A real nice guy. But I think I'm temperamental.
I've never been super confident about anything. The work is never as good as it could be.