Lou Reed Quotes

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

You've gotta blow the roof off of your heart and let the universe in.

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.

Take a walk on the wild side.

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

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

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

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

Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony.

Life's like a mayonnaise soda.

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

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

You do this because you like it, you think what you're making is beautiful. And if you think it's beautiful, maybe they think it's beautiful.

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

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

It always bothers me to see people writing RIP when a person dies. It just feels so insincere and like a cop out. To me, RIP is the microwave dinner of posthumous honours.

Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor, that's what the Statue of Bigotry says. Your poor huddled masses, let's just club them to death, and get it over with.

My God is rock'n'roll.

I take drugs just because in the 20th century in a technological age living in the city there are certain drugs you have to take just to keep yourself normal like a caveman. Just to bring yourself up or down, but to attain equilibrium you need to take certain drugs. They don't getcha high even, they just getcha normal.

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

Will none of the powers that be realize what Brian Wilson did with the chords. Deftly taking from all sources, old rock, Four Freshman, he got in his records a beautiful hybrid sound - Let Him Run Wild, Don't Worry Baby, I Get Around, Fun, Fun, Fun - 'and she had fun, fun, fun 'till her daddy took her T-bird away.'

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

Things always seem to end before they start

Rock & roll is so great, people should start dying for it. You don't understand. The music gave you back your beat so you could dream...The people just have to die for the music. People are dying for everything else, so why not for music? Die for it. Isn't it pretty? Wouldn't you die for something pretty?

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

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

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.

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

Herpes, AIDS, the Middle East at full throttle. Better check that sausage before you put it in the waffle.

But I found tai chi when I was studying with Leung Shum, who teaches Eagle Claw and Wu Hao.

I am bigger and stronger than ever. My Chen Taiji and health regimen has served me well all of these years, thanks to Master Ren Guang-yi. I look forward to being on stage performing, and writing more songs to connect with your hearts and spirits and the universe well into the future.

Between thought and expression lies a lifetime.

I would like to live to a ripe old age and raise watermelons in Wyoming.

All I want to do, is write rock and roll that you could listen to as you got older, and it wouldn't lose anything; it would be timeless, in the subject matter and the literacy of the lyrics.

Well, everybody does something, some people race cars, others collect stamps, I find tai chi to be philosophically, aesthetically, physically and spiritually fascinating.

I'm tearing down Route 80 East, the sun's on my right side. I'm drunk, but my vision's good.

An eye for an eye is elemental.

I tried to give up drugs by drinking.

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

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

You do what you love, or you get arrested.

Sometimes, you've got to be in a place. You're just another guy. You can just blend in. I live out in the wilds of nowhere, out in Jersey. Even there, there's sometimes problems. College students like journey out there and show up at 11 o'clock at night, on my porch, looking into the door not saying anything. My wife and I are sitting there; it's really creepy.

My God is rock'n'roll. It's an obscure power that can change your life. The most important part of my religion is to play guitar.

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

I like druggy downtown kids who spray paint walls and trains. I like their lack of training, their primitive technique. I think it hurts you, when you stay too long in school.

You can't always trust your mother.

It's the music that kept us all intact, kept us from going crazy.

You know the expression 'God protects fools and drunks'? I qualify for both.

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

Does anyone need yet another politician caught with his pants down and money sticking in his hole?