Quotes By Lou Reed

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

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

I can concentrate on my art.

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

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

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

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

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

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 know anyone actually who does care what a critic says.

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

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

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

I'm a humanist.

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

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

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

Take a walk on the wild side.

I don't like overdubs, never liked them.

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.

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

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

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

Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony.

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.

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

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.

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

I tried to give up drugs by drinking.