Top 180 Lou Reed Quotes (2025 Update)
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151. “Writhe and sway to music’s pain searing with asides, caress death with a lover’s touch for it shall be your bride.”

— Lou Reed

152. “I don’t know what goes on in the crowd. I’ve had them show up and throw beer cans at me. I caused riots in most of the major cities.”

— Lou Reed

153. “Kill them now, cause I need some kicks. I need some kicks, I’m getting bored.”

— Lou Reed

154. “You’re a musician: You play. That’s what you do.”

— Lou Reed

155. “I’ve found that from my point of view, the Chen style contained many things that I knew on a fairly superficial level from Eagle Claw, and that had Chen elements of what seemed to me the soft in Eagle Claw.”

— Lou Reed

156. “I had started also studying because I wanted to learn more about power and fighting.”

— Lou Reed

157. “Don’t the people you’re around shape the music, is that what you’re saying? Everything does.”

— Lou Reed

158. “Me, I’ve concentrated on music pretty much to the exclusion of other things.”

— Lou Reed

159. “People think that I work out but it’s all t’ai chi.”

— Lou Reed

160. “Perfect Night is minimalistic and that’s what makes it so forceful.”

— Lou Reed

161. “I don’t like the word rock opera, but I’m trying to write on that level that’s reserved for plays still, or novels.”

— Lou Reed

162. “How could you even dream or think something of someone who is as uncommercial as I am?”

— Lou Reed

163. “I mean, there are peripheral things I do, I do photography, I write plays, I have books published, but that’s neither here not there.”

— Lou Reed

164. “Speaking in a common tongue, speaking through guitars and drums.”

— Lou Reed

165. “The injuries we do in kind are visited upon us often. In the science of the mind, trying hard to move a shadow.”

— Lou Reed

166. “When I record an album I’m trying to get as close as possible to that perfect moment.”

— Lou Reed

167. “I don’t like overdubs, never liked them.”

— Lou Reed

168. “Bodily changes take place, like the thing with the kick.”

— Lou Reed

169. “Moving on has allowed me to know who I am and to be present in all that I do. I take this forward in my work and in my personal relationships. It is a powerful program and I highly recommend it to anyone wanting to move on with their life.”

— Lou Reed

170. “I try very much, whenever I do projects, whatever it is, there’s only one thing on my mind, only one thing.”

— Lou Reed

171. “People can vote for who ever they want. That doesn’t mean I have to go near them.”

— Lou Reed

172. “I cleaned up my act because otherwise I would have kicked the bucket.”

— Lou Reed

173. “That’s why I survived because I still believe I’ve got something to say.”

— Lou Reed

174. “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

175. “This violent rage that turned inward cannot be helped by drink.”

— Lou Reed

176. “Music was what bothered me, what interested me.”

— Lou Reed

177. “The currents rage so deep upon us, this is the age of video violence.”

— Lou Reed

178. “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

179. “The music business doesn’t interest me anymore.”

— Lou Reed

180. “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.”

— Lou Reed