Senator, it has been reported that you have had illegal congress with your mother. — Lou Reed

You can’t always trust your mother. — Lou Reed

When he beat my mother it made me so mad. — 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

You won’t see my parents honored on any stamps. — Lou Reed

You do what you love, or you get arrested. — Lou Reed

And no kinds of love are better than others. Some Kinda Love — Lou Reed

I love Ornette Coleman. I love Don Cherry. I love the way those guys play. — Lou Reed

I love women, I think they’re great. — Lou Reed

I’ve made love to my mother, killed my father, and my brother. What am I to do? — Lou Reed

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

Caroline says as she gets up from the floor, you can hit me all you want to, but I don’t love you anymore. — Lou Reed

Honey, I’m a cocksucker, what are you? — Lou Reed

If it has more than three chords, it’s jazz. — Lou Reed

One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you’re into jazz. — Lou Reed

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

Me, I’ve concentrated on music pretty much to the exclusion of other things. — Lou Reed

The music business doesn’t interest me anymore. — Lou Reed

Music was what bothered me, what interested me. — Lou Reed

It’s the music that kept us all intact, kept us from going crazy. — Lou Reed

Don’t the people you’re around shape the music, is that what you’re saying? Everything does. — Lou Reed

Music should come crashing out of your speakers and grab you, and the lyrics should challenge whatever preconceived notions that listener has. — Lou Reed

I always thought martial arts was the most modern choreography we could have right now, and I always wanted to put it to music. — Lou Reed

Perfect Night has that magic and it has the raw energy that grabs you by the throat. — Lou Reed

You’re going to reap just what you sow. Perfect Day — Lou Reed

When I record an album I’m trying to get as close as possible to that perfect moment. — Lou Reed

But I’m also talented and I know when I created something great and Perfect Night is something great, no doubt, no but. — Lou Reed

Over what guilty spirit to not hear the beating, to not hear the beating, but only tears of perfect moan, only tears of perfect moan. — Lou Reed

Perfect Night is minimalistic and that’s what makes it so forceful. — Lou Reed

I try very much, whenever I do projects, whatever it is, there’s only one thing on my mind, only one thing. — Lou Reed

I don’t mind a repetitive chorus; I mind repetitive verse. I mean, it’s the same amount of space. Why would you have only three diamonds if you can have six? — Lou Reed

All the people have gone to war leaving no interrogator to mind. — Lou Reed

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

When you think the night has seen your mind, That inside your twisted and unkind, Let me stand to show that you are blind. Please put down you hands cause I see you. I’ll be you mirror. — Lou Reed

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

I think it’s pretentious to create art just for the sake of stroking the artists ego. — Lou Reed

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

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. — Lou Reed

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. — Lou Reed

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

There’s only X amount of time. You can do whatever you want with that time. It’s your time. — Lou Reed

High energy does not necessarily mean fast, high energy has to do with heart. — 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 wanna hear some Diana Ross, I wanna hear some Marvin Gaye. I wanna hear a song that reminds me of a better day. — Lou Reed

I’ve always believed that there’s an amazing number of things you can do through a rock’n’roll song and that you can do serious writing in a rock song if you can somehow do it without losing the beat. — 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

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. — Lou Reed