Top 205 Quotes & Sayings by Lou Reed

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an American musician Lou Reed.

Last updated on November 22, 2024.

Lewis Allan Reed was an American musician, singer, songwriter, and poet. He was the guitarist, singer, and principal songwriter for the rock band the Velvet Underground and had a solo career that spanned five decades. Although not commercially successful during its existence, the Velvet Underground became regarded as one of the most influential bands in the history of underground and alternative rock music. Reed's distinctive deadpan voice, poetic and transgressive lyrics, and experimental guitar playing were trademarks throughout his long career.

American - Musician | March 2, 1942 - October 27, 2013

Source: Wikipedia

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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.

Lou Reed

My God is rock'n'roll.

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

I tried to give up drugs by drinking.

Lou Reed

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.

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

Perfect Night is minimalistic and that's what makes it so forceful.

Lou Reed

The music business doesn't interest me anymore.

Lou Reed

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.

Lou Reed

I can concentrate on my art.

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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.

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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.

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

I've become completely well adjusted to being a cult figure.

Lou Reed

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.

Lou Reed

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.

Lou Reed

I'm a humanist.

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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.

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

Music was what bothered me, what interested me.

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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.

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony.

Lou Reed

Take a walk on the wild side.

Lou Reed

I don't like overdubs, never liked them.

Lou Reed

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.

Lou Reed

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.

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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.

Lou Reed

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?

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

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.

Lou Reed

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

Lou Reed

I'm too old to do things by half.

Lou Reed