Top 112 Quotes & Sayings by Laurie Anderson
Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Laurie Anderson.
Last updated on September 17, 2024.
Performance art is about joy, about making something that's so full of kind of a wild joy that you really can't put into words.
I see and write things first as an artist, second as a woman, and third as a New Yorker. All three have built-in perspectives that aren't neutral.
The fewer expectations you have, the better.
I really like books that you can kind of hear as much as think about, that are so graphic and visual.
The only stuff I don't like are Broadway musicals. I hate them. I don't even like to talk about it. I can't bear musicals.
A lot of artists who have a certain style are expected to more or less keep doing their style. It's so easy to get into that rut of production.
My secret dream is to write an epic poem. That's probably the most pretentious thing I've said.
I'm a real workaholic.
A lot of words in English confuse the idea of life and electricity, like the word livewire.
I'm an average enough person to point to the things I've gotten to see that are awe-inspiring.
I hate zoos.
Something that has so much power must have life. Instruments have life.
One of the things I learned from working on the Olympics was, the world does not need another big multimedia show.
Writers want to summarize: What does this mean? What did we learn from this? That's a very 19th-century way of thinking about art, because it assumes that it should make our lives better or teach us something.
As an artist I'd choose the thing that's beautiful more than the one that's true.
Besides all those whaling details, Moby Dick is about someone who's looking for something so huge, something they've wanted all their life, yet they know when they find it, it will kill them.
I so much appreciate it when anybody tries to make something and tries to be an artist - I'm happy to see the work.
I've been trying to avoid goal-oriented behavior.
When love is gone, there's always justice. And when justice is gone, there's always force. And when force is gone, there's always Mom. Hi, Mom!
I have written a lot about snakes. There's something pretty primordial about it.
A lot of the work in United States is highly critical of technology. I'm using 15,000 watts of power and 18 different pieces of electronic equipment to say that.
I just sort of wish people would dance differently. It reminds me of teenage sex.
I think women are excellent social critics.
It's good to take a longer view and think, What would I really like to do if I had no limitations whatsoever?
Why do you have to translate and decode things? Just let the image be. It will have a special kind of reality that it won't once it's decoded.
I think a lot of people in Washington are extremely suspicious of NASA.
You can do great things with low-tech stuff.
The world is a strange and wonderful place.
People only stutter at the beginning of the word. They're not afraid when they get to the end of the word. There's just regret.
If there are bases on the moon, that would be the end of the moon as we know it.
You can do bigger and bigger things. For what?
It's just such a great miracle when things do work, and they work for such a wild variety of crazy reasons.
I have written a few children's books. The first book that I wrote was for children. It was called 'The Package', and it was a mystery story in pictures. It had no words.
As a New Yorker, I'm someone who lives on an island and looks across to America.
People are really suffering these days. There's a lot of corporate triumph and a lot of personal despair as they wonder what are they working for.
The problem with prototypes is they don't always work.
My work is more about trying to ask good questions and not trying to come up with big shows. Every fashion company is doing that, every car company is doing that.
I'm not usually where I think I am. It's kind of spooky.
At the School of Visual Arts in New York, you can get your degree in Net art, which is really a fantastic way of thinking of theater in new ways.
Paradise is exactly like where you are right now... only much, much better.
My job is to make images and leave the decision-making and conclusion-drawing to other people.
I don't take compliments so well. I always hang my head and shuffle and kind of try to immediately forget.
I think artists who are attracted to working on the Net will adjust their work to the capabilities of a very small screen.
I've never really had a hobby, unless you count art, which the IRS once told me I had to declare as a hobby since I hadn't made money with it.
The thing that's characteristic of my performance is that I literally do drag the whole studio onto the stage.
If I'm confused, I just spend some time looking at the sky and falling into it. It's not a meditation that anyone taught me, it's something I've done my whole life, and liked doing, and it made me feel like nothing.
Don't be afraid of anyone. Imagine your life if you're not afraid of anyone.
. . . I wrote a letter to Thomas Pynchon asking, Can I have your permission to try to make an [adaptation] of your book? And I had no idea that he would answer me, because he's pretty elusive. But he did send a letter back that said, Yes, you can do that - as long as the only instrument in the opera is a banjo. I thought, That's an interesting way of saying No.
Computers are so deeply stupid. What bother me most when they talk about technology is they don't realize how much more exciting their minds are. That machine is stupid. And boring. It does just a few things and then it'll crash. People think, 'I am on the Net, I am in touch with the world'. Wrong! The point is how we work, not how machines work.
They say that Heaven is like TV... a perfect little world, that doesn't really need you.
Last night, I had that dream again. I dreamt I had to take a test, in a Dairy Queen, on another planet.
I believe that the purpose of death is the release of love.
When you meet a man who is broken, pick him up and carry him. When you meet a woman who’s broken, put her all into your arms. Cause we don’t know where we come from … we don’t know where we are.
Art is about paying attention.
History is an angel being blown backwards into the future
Technology today is the campfire around which we tell our stories. There's this attraction to light and to this kind of power, which is both warm and destructive. We're especially drawn to the power. Many of the images of technology are about making us more powerful, extending what we can do. Unfortunately, 95 percent of this is hype, because I think we're powerful without it.
I think illusion is one of the most interesting things that I've found to think about. Just look at yesterday, and what you were doing, and how important it was, and how nonexistent it is now! How dreamlike it is! Same thing with tomorrow. So where are we living?
If you're a young artist, wondering what to call yourself, consider 'multimedia artist.' It's so vague. Then, no one can say, 'Hey, how come you're a jazz person, and you're making a pop opera?
Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories.
Books are the way the dead talk to the living.
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