Lou Reed famous quotes

Take a walk on the wild side.
-- Lou Reed

#Journey #Hiking #Sides

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.
-- Lou Reed

#Mean #Successful #Thinking

You've gotta blow the roof off of your heart and let the universe in.
-- Lou Reed

#Heart #Blow #Roof

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.
-- Lou Reed

#Beautiful #Fashion #Thinking

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

#Coffee #Blood #Evil

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

#Thinking #Everything Happens For A Reason #Reason

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

#Play #Trying #Joking Around

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.
-- Lou Reed

#Cities #Drug #Age

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

#Guitar #Bass #Beats

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

#Two #Three #Pushing

Life is like Sanskrit read to a pony.
-- Lou Reed

#Life #Music #Ponies

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

#Art #Reality #Vanity

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

#Love #Life #Family

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

#Grief #Adversity #Loss

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

#Mean #Artist #Want

Rock & roll is so great, people should start dying for it. You don't understand. The music gave you back your beat so you could dream...The people just have to die for the music. People are dying for everything else, so why not for music? Die for it. Isn't it pretty? Wouldn't you die for something pretty?
-- Lou Reed

#Dream #Rocks #People

Nothing beats 2 guitars, drum and bass.
-- Lou Reed

#Guitar #Bass #Beats

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

#Rooms

It always bothers me to see people writing RIP when a person dies. It just feels so insincere and like a cop out. To me, RIP is the microwave dinner of posthumous honours.
-- Lou Reed

#Rip #Writing #People

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,
-- Lou Reed

#Song #Writing #Numbers

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

#Want

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

#Life Is Short #Thinking #Past

When I record an album I'm trying to get as close as possible to that perfect moment.
-- Lou Reed

#Perfect #Trying #Albums

I don't think I'm in any position to call myself a martial artist. I'm a student of the martial arts.
-- Lou Reed

#Art #Thinking #Students

Things always seem to end before they start
-- Lou Reed

#Ends

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

#Sound #Noise #Life Is

They put the thing down your throat so you don't swallow your tongue, and they put electrodes on your head. That's what was recommended in Rockland State Hospital to discourage homosexual feelings. The effect is that you lose your memory and become a vegetable. You can't read a book because you get to page 17 and have to go right back to page one again.
-- Lou Reed

#Memories #Book #Vegetables

My God is rock'n'roll. It's an obscure power that can change your life. The most important part of my religion is to play guitar.
-- Lou Reed

#Rocks #Guitar #Play

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.'
-- Lou Reed

#Beautiful #Running #Baby

Any human being should have a tolerance for anybody.
-- Lou Reed

#Tolerance #Should #Humans

You're going to reap just what you sow
-- Lou Reed

#Reap

When you think the night has seen your mind, That inside your twisted and unkind, Let me stand to show that you are blind. Please put down you hands cause I see you. I'll be you mirror.
-- Lou Reed

#Night #Thinking #Mirrors

And no kinds of love are better than others
-- Lou Reed

#Kind #Kinds Of Love

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

#Rocks #Perfect #Insanity

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

#Buckets

I don't believe in dressing up reality. I don't believe in using makeup to make things look smoother.
-- Lou Reed

#Believe #Makeup #Reality

It's depressing when you're still around and your albums are out of print.
-- Lou Reed

#Depressing #Albums #Print

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

#Three #Jazz #Chords

My God is rock'n'roll.
-- Lou Reed

#Rocks #Rock N Roll

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

#People #Dying #Why Not

I tried to give up drugs by drinking.
-- Lou Reed

#Giving Up #Drinking #Giving

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

#Important #Said