Quotes by Lou Reed

• One of my rules is: Never listen to your old stuff.
• My God is rock'n'roll.
• Music was what bothered me, what interested me.
• Me, I've concentrated on music pretty much to the exclusion of other things.
• Perfect Night has that magic and it has the raw energy that grabs you by the throat.
• The music business doesn't interest me anymore.
• If it has more than three chords, it's jazz.
• Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony.
• Perfect Night is minimalistic and that's what makes it so forceful.
• Some even claim that I'm a terror, a dictator and they're right.
• Take a walk on the wild side.
• The most important part of my religion is to play guitar.
• When I record an album I'm trying to get as close as possible to that perfect moment.
• You can't ask me to explain the lyrics because I won't do it.
• I'm too old to do things by half.
• There's a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out.
• That's why I survived because I still believe I've got something to say.
• These are really terribly rough times, and we really should try to be as nice to each other as possible.
• 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.
• I always believed that I have something important to say and I said it.
• I always thought martial arts was the most modern choreography we could have right now, and I always wanted to put it to music.
• But I'm also talented and I know when I created something great and Perfect Night is something great, no doubt, no but.
• I can concentrate on my art.
• I cleaned up my act because otherwise I would have kicked the bucket.
• I don't believe in dressing up reality. I don't believe in using makeup to make things look smoother.
• I don't know anyone actually who does care what a critic says.
• I don't like nostalgia unless it's mine.
• 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 don't think I'm in any position to call myself a martial artist. I'm a student of the martial arts.
• I love Ornette Coleman. I love Don Cherry. I love the way those guys play.
• I think it's pretentious to create art just for the sake of stroking the artists ego.
• I think life is far too short to concentrate on your past. I rather look into the future.
• I think that everything happens for a reason, everything happens when it's going to happen.
• I tried to give up drugs by drinking.
• I'm in this business for too long to be halfhearted about anything.
• I'm an artist and that means I can be as egotistical as I want to be.
• 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 like overdubs, never liked them.