Top 180 Lou Reed Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “You’re going to reap just what you sow.”

— Lou Reed

2. “Take a walk on the wild side.”

— Lou Reed

3. “Research, research, research. It means everything.”

— Lou Reed

4. “My week beats your year.”

— Lou Reed

5. “My God is rock’n’roll.”

— Lou Reed

6. “Give me your hungry, your tired, your poor, that’s what the Statue of Bigotry says. Your poor huddled masses, let’s just club them to death, and get it over with.”

— Lou Reed

7. “Honey, I’m a cocksucker, what are you?”

— Lou Reed

8. “I think that everything happens for a reason, everything happens when it’s going to happen.”

— Lou Reed

9. “Things always seem to end before they start.”

— Lou Reed

10. “Life’s like a mayonnaise soda.”

— Lou Reed

11. “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

Featured in: Guitar Quotes

12. “It’s just a temporary thing.”

— Lou Reed

13. “One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz.”

— Lou Reed

14. “You’ve gotta blow the roof off of your heart and let the universe in.”

— Lou Reed

15. “There’s a bit of magic in everything, and some loss to even things out.”

— Lou Reed

16. “You can’t always trust your mother.”

— Lou Reed

17. “I like druggy downtown kids who spray paint walls and trains. I like their lack of training, their primitive technique. I think it hurts you, when you stay too long in school.”

— Lou Reed

18. “Why don’t you swallow razor blades?”

— Lou Reed

19. “High energy does not necessarily mean fast, high energy has to do with heart.”

— Lou Reed

20. “Just a perfect day, problems all left alone.”

— Lou Reed

21. “Between thought and expression lies a lifetime.”

— Lou Reed

22. “Underachievers of the world unite, you have nothing to lose except your fright.”

— Lou Reed

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

— Lou Reed

24. “Let’s do what you fear most That from which you recoil But which still makes your eyes moist.”

— Lou Reed

25. “I’d breed a little liberal army in the wood, just like these redneck lunatics I see at the local bar with their tribe of mutant inbred piglets.”

— Lou Reed

26. “When the past makes you laugh and you can savor the magic that lets you survive your own war, you’ll find that that fire is passion and there’s a door up ahead – not a wall.”

— Lou Reed

27. “I can create a vibe without saying anything, just by being in the room.”

— Lou Reed

28. “And no kinds of love are better than others.”

— Lou Reed

29. “All I want to do, is write rock and roll that you could listen to as you got older, and it wouldn’t lose anything; it would be timeless, in the subject matter and the literacy of the lyrics.”

— Lou Reed

30. “To debate political objectives, views, and goals is the most American thing conceivable.”

— Lou Reed

31. “I’ve made love to my mother, killed my father, and my brother. What am I to do?”

— Lou Reed

32. “Valium would have helped that bash.”

— Lou Reed

33. “You can’t beat 2 guitars, bass, and drums.”

— Lou Reed

34. “Sound is more than just noise. Ordered sound is music. My life is music.”

— Lou Reed

35. “When you pass through the fire, you pass through humble.”

— Lou Reed

36. “I want the principles of a timeless muse, I want to eradicate my negative views.”

— Lou Reed

37. “Does anyone need yet another politician caught with his pants down and money sticking in his hole?”

— Lou Reed

38. “There are problems in these times, but none of them are mineI’m beginning to see the light.”

— Lou Reed

39. “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

40. “The heart says what only the heart knows.”

— Lou Reed

41. “If someone teaches you alignment and – I’m not a tai chi expert by any stretch – so interviewing me about tai chi is kind of the cart before the horse – but just from my point of view as a student, it’s simply that Master Ren can show you the relationship of power, stance and form.”

— Lou Reed

42. “She’s my best friend, better than a dog or car.”

— Lou Reed

43. “There’s only X amount of time. You can do whatever you want with that time. It’s your time.”

— Lou Reed

44. “I love women, I think they’re great.”

— Lou Reed

45. “I’m writing about real things. Real people. Real characters. You have to believe what I write about is true or you wouldn’t pay any attention at all. Sometimes it’s me, or a composite of me and other people. Sometimes it’s not me at all.”

— Lou Reed

46. “I would like to live to a ripe old age and raise watermelons in Wyoming.”

— Lou Reed

47. “I always believed that I have something important to say and I said it.”

— Lou Reed

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

— Lou Reed

49. “You know, when you’re relaxed, you’re putting it out there, and then it comes, oh, I can do that.”

— Lou Reed

50. “One thing I’ve often thought is that I never want to tell anybody else what to do. It’s hard enough to figure out what I want to do.”

— Lou Reed