Top 45 Lou Reed Quotes

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

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

I tried to give up drugs by drinking.

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

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.

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

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

I don’t like overdubs, never liked them.

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.

My God is rock’n’roll.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Take a walk on the wild side.

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

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

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.

The music business doesn’t interest me anymore.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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 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?

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony.