Lou Reed Quotes

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.

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

Take a walk on the wild side.

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.

Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony.

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

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

Life's like a mayonnaise soda.

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.

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

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.'

I tried to give up drugs by drinking.

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.

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

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

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

Herpes, AIDS, the Middle East at full throttle.

Better check that sausage before you put it in the waffle.

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.

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.

Between thought and expression lies a lifetime.

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

An eye for an eye is elemental.

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

I don't like nostalgia unless it's mine.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

Nothing beats 2 guitars, drum and bass.

I don't think I'm in any position to call myself a martial artist.

I'm a student of the martial arts.

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.

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

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

The baby sits in front of MTV watching violent fantasies, while Dad guzzles beer with his favorite sport only to find his heroes all coked up.

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.

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