Lou Reed Quotes

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

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?

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

I can concentrate on my art.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

Music was what bothered me, what interested me.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

Take a walk on the wild side.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

I tried to give up drugs by drinking.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

The music business doesn't interest me anymore.

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

I'm a humanist.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

I don't like nostalgia unless it's mine.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

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.

- Lou Reed

I don't like overdubs, never liked them.

- Lou Reed

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

- Lou Reed

I'm too old to do things by half.

- Lou Reed

Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony.

- Lou Reed