John Cale famous quotes

04-12-2025

Time plays a role in almost every decision. And some decisions define your attitude about time.
-- John Cale

#Attitude #Play #Decision
Even if you're improvising, the fact that beforehand you know certain things will work helps you make those improvisations successful. It really helps to have a certain amount of knowledge about musical structure.
-- John Cale

#Successful #Musical #Facts
I like it here in New York. I like the idea of having to keep eyes in the back of your head all the time.
-- John Cale

#Eye
What I enjoy most about being on stage is that the natural instruments give you a greater freedom with texture. When you use natural instruments they have their own resonance.
-- John Cale

#Giving #Use #Texture
Growing up in Wales was a pretty Draconian experience with religion.
-- John Cale

#Growing Up #Growing #Wales
I want to get lean and mean, keep it minimalist.
-- John Cale

#Mean #Want #Minimalist
I'm impatient. I get twitchy. When I get that feeling I just go out and make something happen.
-- John Cale

#Feelings #Impatient #Things Happen
I'm writing a movie about Mozart going to New York in the '60s. I've been reading so many novels.
-- John Cale

#New York #Reading #Writing
If I'm interested in what I'm doing, other people will be interested in it.
-- John Cale

#People
In cities like New York and Austin, there's much more of a social context for music than in other places.
-- John Cale

#New York #Cities #Austin
People sort of know me for that solo piano music I did.
-- John Cale

#Piano #People #Solo
That's what my life is, writing songs.
-- John Cale

#Song #Writing #Life Is
When somebody grabs a movement, you're kind of locked into it. It's all par for the course.
-- John Cale

#Movement #Kind
Everyone should be encouraged...in spiration and artistic freedom is the cornerstone of rock and roll.
-- John Cale

#Rocks #Rock And Roll #Artistic
We gave up on the idea of trying to make the record a good representation of the live performance.
-- John Cale

#Ideas #Trying #Records
I like what the future holds. I don't like thinking about the past.
-- John Cale

#Past #Thinking
I am a ham. I've no business being rock 'n' roll. I've said it over and over again that I'm a classical composer, dishevelling my personality by dabbling in rock 'n' roll.
-- John Cale

#Rocks #Personality #Ham
I learn from thinking about the future, what hasn't been done yet. That's kind of my constant obsession.
-- John Cale

#Thinking #Done #Kind
The avant-garde makes more sense to me.
-- John Cale

#Avant Garde
The value of having a computer, to me, is that it'll remember everything you do. It's a databank.
-- John Cale

#Remember #Computer #Values
If you're all loaded up on love, you haven't got anywhere else to go.
-- John Cale

#Love You
In the studio you have pretty much carte blanche with whatever you're doing. You can turn natural instruments into electronic instruments.
-- John Cale

#Doing You #Natural #Instruments
I'm content with making records, but I don't want to be doing the same thing all the time.
-- John Cale

#Records #Want
It would be a stronger world, a stronger, loving world, to die in.
-- John Cale

#Stronger #Would Be #World
I never use the word, it's loaded. What love means to me is need.
-- John Cale

#Mean #Needs #Use
I missed out on my teenage years. I led a sheltered life. I was practicing scales instead of playing football.
-- John Cale

#Football #Teenage #Years
The only reason we wore sunglasses onstage was because we couldn't stand the sight of the audience.
-- John Cale

#Sight #Sunglasses #Reason

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