Quotes from Lou Reed

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

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

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

I don't know anyone actually who does care what a critic says.

I've become completely well adjusted to being a cult figure.

But I'm also talented and I know when I created something great and Perfect Night is something great, no doubt, no but.

The most important part of my religion is to play guitar.

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.

Dear Pope, send me some hope or a rope.

I think it's pretentious to create art just for the sake of stroking the artists ego.

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

You can't ask me to explain the lyrics because I won't do it.

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

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.

The first generation of CDs sounded terrible. Any chance to remaster would make the music sound better than what was already out there.

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

Take a walk on the wild side.

Some even claim that I'm a terror, a dictator and they're right.

I have no control over the audience. I have no idea what they think. My heart's pure. I can't do anything. I really can't do anything. I don't know what goes on in the crowd.

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.

When I was in college, I had a jazz radio show. I called it 'Excursion on a Wobbly Rail,' after a Cecil Taylor song. I used to run around the Village following Ornette Coleman wherever he played.

I don't think anybody is anybody else's moral compass. Maybe listening to my music is not the best idea if you live a very constricted life. Or maybe it is.

I dreamed that I was young and smart, and it was not a waste. I dreamed that there was a point of life, and to the human race.