Velvet Underground Quotes

Lou Reed: "I don't like nostalgia unless it's mine."

Maureen Tucker: "When I was playing with the Velvets, I was playing with a group of friends."

Sterling Morrison: "Anybody who needs Bob Dylan to tell him which way the wind is blowing is a serious mental defective."

Lou Reed: "I didn't get in it for the money, and I'm the same way now. I do it for me. Because I like doing it."


John Cale: "If I'm interested in what I'm doing, other people will be interested in it."

Lou Reed: "One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz."

Nico: "I don't think about the future, I can't think further than tomorrow morning...at the most. I leave that to somebody else."

Sterling Morrison: "I like the Doors. I like Jim Morrison, but for different reasons probably than you people think you like the Doors. I like Jim Morrison, he's real nice."

John Cale: "The only reason we wore sunglasses onstage was because we couldn't stand the sight of the audience."

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

John Cale: "I like what the future holds. I don't like thinking about the past."

Lou Reed Quotes

"One chord is fine. Two chords are pushing it. Three chords and you're into jazz."

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

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

"That's why I survived because I still believe I've got something to say."

"I have no control over the audience. I have no idea what they think."

"Chuck Berry is still out there playing. No one can play his music like he does. My stuff's the same way."




"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 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."

"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."

"My week beats your year."