Lou Reed

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.

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.

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

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.

I'm a humanist.

You can't beat 2 guitars, bass, and drums.

The music business doesn't interest me anymore.

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

Perfect Night is minimalistic and that's what makes it so forceful.

Music was what bothered me, what interested me.

I can concentrate on my art.

I think that everything happens for a reason, everything happens when it's going to happen.

I'm in this business for too long to be halfhearted about anything.

I am very emotionally affected by sound. Sounds are the inexplicable... There is a sound you hear in your head, it's your nerves, or your blood running.

I don't like overdubs, never liked them.

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

I don't really think about what the subject of my next album will be. I just know that I'm going to make another album.

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

One of my rules is: Never listen to your old stuff.

I was a product of Andy Warhol's Factory. All I did was sit there and observe these incredibly talented and creative people who were continually making art, and it was impossible not to be affected by that.