Quotes from Laurie Anderson

I'm a real workaholic.

I didn't really understand that Vipassana is a relatively new form of Buddhism that was based on the storage of pain. So the idea is that every time you don't scream, that's your Buddhist side.

I wanted to stay hooked because it was the first time I've been part of the tradition where forgetting was just fine. You do it, you try, you forget, you fail.

My job is to make images and leave the decision-making and conclusion-drawing to other people.

I don't take compliments so well. I always hang my head and shuffle and kind of try to immediately forget.

Writers want to summarize: What does this mean? What did we learn from this? That's a very 19th-century way of thinking about art, because it assumes that it should make our lives better or teach us something.

Shining in the midnight moonlight, while the King sings love me tender.

Something that has so much power must have life. Instruments have life.

I have written a few children's books. The first book that I wrote was for children. It was called 'The Package', and it was a mystery story in pictures. It had no words.

Why do you have to translate and decode things? Just let the image be. It will have a special kind of reality that it won't once it's decoded.

As a New Yorker, I'm someone who lives on an island and looks across to America.

I see and write things first as an artist, second as a woman, and third as a New Yorker. All three have built-in perspectives that aren't neutral.

I have written a lot about snakes. There's something pretty primordial about it.

The best thing about the term 'performance artist' is that it includes just about everything you might want to do.

If there are bases on the moon, that would be the end of the moon as we know it.

The only stuff I don't like are Broadway musicals. I hate them. I don't even like to talk about it. I can't bear musicals.

I'm not usually where I think I am. It's kind of spooky.

You know, for every dollar a man makes a woman makes 63 cents. Now, fifty years ago that was 62 cents. So, with that kind of luck, it'll be the year 3,888 before we make a buck.

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.

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.

At the School of Visual Arts in New York, you can get your degree in Net art, which is really a fantastic way of thinking of theater in new ways.

When love is gone, there's always justice. And when justice is gone, there's always force. And when force is gone, there's always Mom. Hi, Mom!

My work is more about trying to ask good questions and not trying to come up with big shows. Every fashion company is doing that, every car company is doing that.

I think women are excellent social critics.