Lou reed quotes

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.

All the people have gone to war leaving no interrogator to mind.

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.

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

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.

As you practice things, you get better. I mean I've worked very hard on changing my life and taking what is good about it and trying to jettison the things I think were not good about it. I think the key word is "discipline," focus. I'm always working at it, but I'm not always successful.

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

My God is rock'n'roll.

One thing I've often thought is that I never want to tell anybody else what to do. It's hard enough to figure out what I want to do.

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

Nothing beats 2 guitars, drum and bass.

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

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.

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.

Take a walk on the wild side.

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.'

What could there be more purely bright in truth's day star?

Any human being should have a tolerance for anybody.

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

The president's dead, no one can find his head, its been missing for two weeks. But no one seemed to notice it.

When you think the night has seen your mind, That inside your twisted and unkind, Let me stand to show that you are blind. Please put down you hands cause I see you. I'll be you mirror.

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.

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

Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony.

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.

Things always seem to end before they start

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.

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.

Let's do what you fear most That from which you recoil But which still makes your eyes moist

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.

The rich son waits for his father to die, the poor just drink and cry.

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?

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

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

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

When you pass through the fire, you pass through humble.

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

I like mindless disco... they say the lyrics are stupid and repetitious. So what's wrong with that? So is lying in the sun. Not everything has to be serious.

But it's not only: What are you going to do about touring, it's: What are you going to do with your life? Is there a point to what we do? I think there is. Making music, creating beautiful things. We have to be in love with the good and the beautiful. If we are not, then you're in a nihilistic state.

With Master Ren, if I'd tell him I can't do that and he'd say, yes you can, and it turns out I very much can do it.

I tried to give up drugs by drinking.

Not too many songwriters, when they write songs go for broke. When someone does who's really good, it's astonishing. There's a reason a three-minute song can devastate you, or make you get up and dance, stop what you're doing and go, 'What is that?' It just hits you. And it's a very potent thing you're playing around with.

Life's like a mayonnaise soda.

I write whatever shows up. That's good enough for me. I'm part of the first generation that wants to still do original material and not tour around as an oldies act.

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

I've always believed that there's an amazing number of things you can do through a rock'n'roll song and that you can do serious writing in a rock song if you can somehow do it without losing the beat.

Electricity comes from other planets.

The heart says what only the heart knows.

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?

Music is an amazing thing. I don't know if we really think about it the same way we consider a painting an amazing thing. I mean, a painting is, in quotes, imaginary. There is nothing on the canvas when you start; and writing a song, there is nothing there when you start.

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.

Some people drink to unleash their libidos, and other people drink to prop up their egos.

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.

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

When I saw that combination of grace and power, the fast and the soft, the yin and the yang, that's what I'd been looking for.

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

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

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.

They tied his arms behind his back to teach him how to swim, they put blood in his coffee and milk in his gin.

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

And no kinds of love are better than others

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

You're going to reap just what you sow

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

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'm too old to do things by half

You can't ask me to explain the lyrics because I won't do it...I always believed that I have something important to say and I said it. That's why I survived because I still believe I've got something to say. ... I don't like overdubs, never liked them. ... The music business doesn't interest me anymore...Don't the people you're around shape the music, is that what you're saying? Everything does. ... 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.

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

My week beats your year.

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

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

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.

Between thought and expression lies a lifetime.

I wanna hear some Diana Ross, I wanna hear some Marvin Gaye. I wanna hear a song that reminds me of a better day.

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

Speaking in a common tongue, speaking through guitars and drums.

I'd harbored hopes that the intelligence that once inhabited novels or films would ingest rock. I was, perhaps, wrong.

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

I think it's important that people don't feel alone.

Research, research, research. It means everything.

I'd breed a little liberal army in the wood, just like these redneck lunatics I see at the local bar with their tribe of mutant inbred piglets.

Moving on has allowed me to know who I am and to be present in all that I do. I take this forward in my work and in my personal relationships. It is a powerful program and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to move on with their life.

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.

Dear Pope, send me some hope or a rope.

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.

What I really love is my scotch. It's the power, the power of positive drinking.

I don't think anybody is anybody else's moral compass.

It's interesting to have a conglomeration of people that covers the strata from A to Z... There's a certain element of the audience that's intellectually oriented, into the lyrics... then there's another element of the audience that's into a sex trip. I'm into both of them.

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.

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

High energy does not necessarily mean fast, high energy has to do with heart.

You won't see my parents honored on any stamps.

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.

The most important thing is work.

Plucked her eyebrows on the way, shaved her legs and then he was a she. She said, hey babe, take a walk on the wild side.

Please don't set me free Death means a lot me

It's fun to be in a small club and to be able to look somebody right in the eye and watch them just freak. Then it's fun to be in front of thousands of people and watch a couple of hundred freaking out of their minds.

An eye for an eye is elemental.

I'm still not sure I didn't die

When the past makes you laugh and you can savor the magic that lets you survive your own war, you'll find that that fire is passion and there's a door up ahead - not a wall.

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

I never liked the Beatles. I thought they were garbage.

First thing you learnis that you'vealways got to wait

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.

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

You do what you love, or you get arrested.

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

I love women, I think they're great.

But it's the things that preceded it that made that happen, and of course now someone like me thinks, well, if I can do that... then there are a lot of other things that are possible.

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

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

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

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.

When you're growing up in a small town You know you'll grow down in a small town There is only one good use for a small town You hate it and you know you'll have to leave.

I'm not leaving New York. And neither is anyone else. We're here. We are quintessential Americans - we're not only American, but New York-American.

I want the principles of a timeless muse, I want to eradicate my negative views.

They put the thing down your throat so you don't swallow your tongue, and they put electrodes on your head. That's what was recommended in Rockland State Hospital to discourage homosexual feelings. The effect is that you lose your memory and become a vegetable. You can't read a book because you get to page 17 and have to go right back to page one again.

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

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

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

I dreamed that I was young and smart, and it was not a waste. I dreamed that there was a point of life, and to the human race.

I had started also studying because I wanted to learn more about power and fighting.

You can't always trust your mother.