Quotes from Laurie Anderson

I really like books that you can kind of hear as much as think about, that are so graphic and visual.

You can do bigger and bigger things. For what?

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 think a lot of people in Washington are extremely suspicious of NASA.

As an artist I'd choose the thing that's beautiful more than the one that's true.

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.

Being an artist is a totally godlike thing to do - and I have a god complex.

History is an angel being blown backwards into the future

Paradise Is exactly like Where you are right now Only much much Better.

Literature is the safe and traditional vehicle through which we learn about the world and pass on values from on generation to the next. Books save lives.

My secret dream is to write an epic poem. That's probably the most pretentious thing I've said.

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.

Literature is the safe and traditional vehicle through which we learn about the world and pass on values from on generation to the next. Books save lives.

Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories.

History is an angel being blown backwards into the future

And there was a beutiful view But nobody could see Cause everybody on the island Was saying Look at me! Look at me.

You know the reason I love the stars is because we can't hurt them: we can't burn them, we can't melt them , we can't make them overflow, we can't flood them or burn them up—so we keep reacing for them

I fell in love with the idea that the mysterious thing you look for your whole life will eventually eat you alive. (Explaining her attraction to Moby-Dick)

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.

And there was a beautiful view, But nobody could see. 'Cause everyone in the Island was saiyng, Look at me! Look at me!

Every book is an alchemical creation, and I'm thinking back to 1857 when Herman Melville arrived in Greece and saw the Parthenon for the first time sitting there like a great beached whale, its big white bones exposed to the winds. But how can this happen? How can a whale turn into a building? Or into a book? In what way can words be alive?

and there was a beautiful view but nobody could see cause everybody on the island was saying look at me

The expert is someone who carries malpractice insurance.

I believe that the purpose of death is the release of love.