Quotes By Lou Reed

The music business doesn't interest me anymore.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

I can concentrate on my art.

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

I'm a humanist.

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

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.

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

I don't like overdubs, never liked them.

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.

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

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.

Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony.

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