Top 205 Quotes & Sayings by Lou Reed - Page 3

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.

I'm too old to do things by half

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

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.

You're going to reap just what you sow

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.

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.

Dear Pope, send me some hope or a rope.

I'm still not sure I didn't die

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.

Looking through the viewfinder for me is like being in a movie theater. That's what I like about it.

When critics ask you if you feel vindicated by other critics - I didn't like critics then, and I don't like them now. There you go. I've always been outside the mainstream, and it stayed that way.

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

My attitude is that you very rarely come in contact with someone of Master Ren's level, so every opportunity I could get to learn from him I wanted to do that.

Families that live out in the suburbs often make each other cry.

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.

I've found that from my point of view, the Chen style contained many things that I knew on a fairly superficial level from Eagle Claw, and that had Chen elements of what seemed to me the soft in Eagle Claw.

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

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

Eve kissed Able, that's how he got murdered by Cain.

Bodily changes take place, like the thing with the kick.

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

People didn't know certain things about me, which... I was out of creative writing class in school, Syracuse University; had a B.A. in English and wanted to write the great American novel but I also loved rock and roll. I was in bar bands all through college, playing fraternities and have to know all the songs in the top 10. That kind of thing.

Jealousy endlessly eats through my mind, and jealously endlessly makes me be unkind.

People can vote for who ever they want. That doesn't mean I have to go near them.

The currents rage so deep upon us, this is the age of video violence.

Over what guilty spirit to not hear the beating, to not hear the beating, but only tears of perfect moan, only tears of perfect moan.

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.

I try very much, whenever I do projects, whatever it is, there's only one thing on my mind, only one thing.

I love women, I think they're great.

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

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

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

I mean, there are peripheral things I do, I do photography, I write plays, I have books published, but that's neither here not there.

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

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

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

The gay people know where I'm at. Straight people may not know where I'm at, but they find it kind of interesting when they show up and see what is sitting around them.

The heart says what only the heart knows.

Well all tai chi has the martial aspect to it, a lot of people don't know, a lot of the teachers won't show it, or they do show it but you don't really learn it, what the application is.

To debate political objectives, views, and goals is the most American thing conceivable.

To wish for the crazy times one last time and freeze it in the memory of a camera is the least a great artist can do.

Honey, I'm a cocksucker, what are you?

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.

I wish I had a talking book that told me how to act and look, a talking book that contained keys to past and present memories

An eye for an eye is elemental.

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.

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.

There were lots of things that I recognized from my experience with Eagle Claw and Wu Hao, and here was the combination of the whole kit and kaboodle, the whole tamale in one.

I shot a vein in my neck and coughed up a quaalude.

Senator, it has been reported that you have had illegal congress with your mother.

Electricity comes from other planets.

Valium would have helped that bash.

You know, when you're relaxed, you're putting it out there, and then it comes, oh, I can do that.

If someone teaches you alignment and - I'm not a tai chi expert by any stretch - so interviewing me about tai chi is kind of the cart before the horse - but just from my point of view as a student, it's simply that Master Ren can show you the relationship of power, stance and form.

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.

The most important thing is work.

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

Don't the people you're around shape the music, is that what you're saying? Everything does.

This violent rage that turned inward cannot be helped by drink.