Lou Reed Quotes

41 Sourced Quotes

There are problems in these times, but none of them are mineI'm beginning to see the light

Lou Reed
I'll tell ya, I'm a genuinely nice guy. I really am. A real nice guy. But I think I'm temperamental.

Lou Reed
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.

Lou Reed
I wanted to be an actor. That was my real goal. But I wasn't any good at it, so I wrote my own material and acted through that. That's my idea of fun. I get to be all these things in the songs.

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

Lou Reed
The rich son waits for his father to die, the poor just drink and cry.

Lou Reed
As the dead rise to live, the live sink to die, the currents are deep and raging inside.

Lou Reed
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
Raymond Chandler managed to write about L.A. his whole career. Should I keep going writing about New York? Is that what I should be doing? Songwriting doesn't work that way.

Lou Reed
The sickness of the mother runs on through the girl, leaving her small and helpless. Liquor flies through her brain with the force of a gun, leaving her running in circles.

Lou Reed
Speaking in a common tongue, speaking through guitars and drums.

Lou Reed
I can't tell the difference between wrong and right, are you laughing at me?

Lou Reed
Anyone that gets to side four is dumber than I am.

Lou Reed
I write whatever shows up. That's good enough for me. I'm part of the first generation that wants to still do original material and not tour around as an oldies act.

Lou Reed
For a while, I felt a little self-impelled to write Lou Reed Kind of songs. I should have understood that a Lou Reed song was anything I wanted to write about.

Lou Reed
I don't know just where I'm going
But I'm gonna try for the kingdom if I can
'Cause it makes me feel like I'm a man
When I put a spike into my vein
And I'll tell ya, things aren't quite the same.

Lou Reed
The only thing constantly changing is change, and change is always changing for the worse.

Lou Reed
I'm waiting for my man
Twenty-six dollars in my hand
Up to Lexington 125
Feeling sick and dirty more dead than alive
I'm waiting for my man.

Lou Reed
Teach them about anger, the sin that comes with dawning. Teach them about flowers, and the beauty of forgiveness.

Lou Reed
Here comes Jesse Jackson, he talks of common ground. Does that common ground include me, or is it just a sound?

Lou Reed