Laurie Anderson quotes

The world is a strange and wonderful place.
-- Laurie Anderson

#World #Strange #Wonder

I think illusion is one of the most interesting things that I've found to think about. Just look at yesterday, and what you were doing, and how important it was, and how nonexistent it is now! How dreamlike it is! Same thing with tomorrow. So where are we living?
-- Laurie Anderson

#Thinking #Yesterday #Interesting

When you meet a man who is broken, pick him up and carry him. When you meet a woman who’s broken, put her all into your arms. Cause we don’t know where we come from … we don’t know where we are.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Women #Broken #Where We Come

When you follow your thoughts and watch them attach to certain things, it makes certain things real and other things unreal, and you realize that this is all created by your mind.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Real #Mind #Watches

Literature is the safe and traditional vehicle through which we learn about the world and pass on values from on generation to the next. Books save lives.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Inspirational #Book #Learning

Technology is the campfire around which we tell our stories.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Technology #Stories #Campfire

History is an angel being blown backwards into the future
-- Laurie Anderson

#Angel #Backwards

It's good to take a longer view and think, what would I really like to do if I had no limitations whatsoever?
-- Laurie Anderson

#Thinking #Views #Limitation

People are really suffering these days. There's a lot of corporate triumph and a lot of personal despair as they wonder what are they working for.
-- Laurie Anderson

#People #Suffering #Despair

You know, for every dollar a man makes a woman makes 63 cents. Now, fifty years ago that was 62 cents. So, with that kind of luck, it’ll be the year 3,888 before we make a buck.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Men #Years #Luck

Paradise Is exactly like Where you are right now Only much much Better.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Heaven #Paradise #Where You Are

It's just such a great miracle when things do work, and they work for such a wild variety of crazy reasons.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Crazy #Miracle #Reason

Art is about paying attention.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Art #Attention #Pay Attention

I believe that the purpose of death is the release of love.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Believe #Purpose #I Believe

I've never really had a hobby, unless you count art, which the IRS once told me I had to declare as a hobby since I hadn't made money with it.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Art #Hobbies #Irs

At the School of Visual Arts in New York, you can get your degree in Net art, which is really a fantastic way of thinking of theater in new ways.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Graduation #Art #New York

Performance art is about joy, about making something that's so full of kind of a wild joy that you really can't put into words.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Art #Joy #Kind

If you're a young artist, wondering what to call yourself, consider 'multimedia artist.' It's so vague. Then, no one can say, 'Hey, how come you're a jazz person, and you're making a pop opera?
-- Laurie Anderson

#Artist #Jazz #Wonder

Long live the beauty that comes down and through and onto all of us.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Long

I don't take compliments so well. I always hang my head and shuffle and kind of try to immediately forget.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Trying #Kind #Forget

Freedon is a scary thing. Most people don't want it.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Freedom #People #Scary

I have written a lot about snakes. There's something pretty primordial about it.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Snakes

My secret dream is to write an epic poem. That's probably the most pretentious thing I've said.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Dream #Writing #Epic

I see and write things first as an artist, second as a woman, and third as a New Yorker. All three have built-in perspectives that aren't neutral.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Writing #Artist #Perspective

I have written a few children's books. The first book that I wrote was for children. It was called "The Package", and it was a mystery story in pictures. It had no words.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Children #Book #Writing

I think a lot of people in Washington are extremely suspicious of NASA.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Thinking #People #Nasa

As an artist I'd choose the thing that's beautiful more than the one that's true.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Beautiful #Artist

A lot of the work in United States is highly critical of technology. I'm using 15,000 watts of power and 18 different pieces of electronic equipment to say that.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Technology #United States #Different

As a New Yorker, I'm someone who lives on an island and looks across to America.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Islands #America #Looks

I'm a real workaholic.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Real #Workaholic

A lot of words in English confuse the idea of life and electricity, like the word livewire.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Ideas #Electricity

I think artists who are attracted to working on the Net will adjust their work to the capabilities of a very small screen.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Artist #Thinking #Capability

I really like books that you can kind of hear as much as think about, that are so graphic and visual.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Book #Thinking #Kind

Besides all those whaling details, Moby Dick is about someone who's looking for something so huge, something they've wanted all their life, yet they know when they find it, it will kill them.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Details #Wanted

Why do you have to translate and decode things? Just let the image be. It will have a special kind of reality that it won't once it's decoded.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Reality #Special #Kind

If there are bases on the moon, that would be the end of the moon as we know it.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Moon #Would Be #Ends

I just sort of wish people would dance differently. It reminds me of teenage sex.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Dance #Sex #Teenage

The fewer expectations you have, the better.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Expectations

And there was a beutiful view But nobody could see Cause everybody on the island Was saying Look at me! Look at me.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Islands #Views #Looks

When love is gone, there's always justice. And when justice is gone, there's always force. And when force is gone, there's always Mom. Hi, Mom!
-- Laurie Anderson

#Love #Mom #Mother

A lot of artists who have a certain style are expected to more or less keep doing their style. It's so easy to get into that rut of production.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Artist #Reality #Style

People only stutter at the beginning of the word. They're not afraid when they get to the end of the word. There's just regret.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Regret #People #Ends

I so much appreciate it when anybody tries to make something and tries to be an artist - I'm happy to see the work.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Appreciation #Artist #Appreciate

I've been trying to avoid goal-oriented behavior.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Goal #Trying #Behavior

They say that Heaven is like TV... a perfect little world, that doesn't really need you.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Perfect #Heaven #Needs

Writers want to summarize: What does this mean? What did we learn from this? That's a very 19th-century way of thinking about art, because it assumes that it should make our lives better or teach us something.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Art #Mean #Thinking

The problem with prototypes is they don't always work.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Problem #Prototype

You know, I can see two tiny pictures of myself And there's one in each of your eyes. And they're doin' everything I do. Every time I light a cigarette, they light up theirs. I take a drink and I look in and they're drinkin' too. It's drivin' me crazy. It's drivin' me nuts.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Crazy #Eye #Light

The only stuff I don't like are Broadway musicals. I hate them. I don't even like to talk about it. I can't bear musicals.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Hate #Broadway #Stuff

All of nature talks to me - if I could just figure out what it's saying - trees are swinging in the breeze. They're talking to me. Insects are rubbing their legs together. They're all talking. They're talking to me.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Talking #Tree #Together

The best thing about the term 'performance artist' is that it includes just about everything you might want to do.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Artist #Want #Might

You need to try to master the ability to feel sad without actually being sad.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Being Sad #Trying #Needs

. . . I wrote a letter to Thomas Pynchon asking, Can I have your permission to try to make an [adaptation] of your book? And I had no idea that he would answer me, because he's pretty elusive. But he did send a letter back that said, Yes, you can do that - as long as the only instrument in the opera is a banjo. I thought, That's an interesting way of saying No.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Book #Ideas #Long

You know the reason I love the stars is because we can't hurt them: we can't burn them, we can't melt them , we can't make them overflow, we can't flood them or burn them up—so we keep reacing for them
-- Laurie Anderson

#Hurt #Stars #Reason

Ninety percent of the people in the world end up with the wrong person. And that's what makes the jukebox spin.
-- Laurie Anderson

#People #Jukebox #World

I'm an average enough person to point to the things I've gotten to see that are awe-inspiring.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Inspiring #Average #Enough

We want to dedicate our music tonight to the great opportunity that we all have to begin to truly understand the events of the past few days and to act upon them with courage and with compassion as we make our plans to live in a completely new world.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Courage #Past #Opportunity

I'm not usually where I think I am. It's kind of spooky.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Thinking #Scary #Kind

I think women are excellent social critics.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Thinking #Excellent #Social

You can do great things with low-tech stuff.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Technology #Stuff #Lows

My job is to make images and leave the decision-making and conclusion-draw ing to other people.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Jobs #People #Decision

My work is more about trying to ask good questions and not trying to come up with big shows. Every fashion company is doing that, every car company is doing that.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Fashion #Car #Trying

Some friends of mine work in an office. They were getting really nervous from their coffee breaks, so they started to have wig breaks. They tried on wigs for 15 minutes. They found this relaxing. So that's Wig Therapy.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Coffee #Office #Wigs

Computers are so deeply stupid. What bother me most when they talk about technology is they don't realize how much more exciting their minds are. That machine is stupid. And boring. It does just a few things and then it'll crash. People think, 'I am on the Net, I am in touch with the world'. Wrong! The point is how we work, not how machines work.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Stupid #Technology #Thinking

Shining in the midnight moonlight, while the King sings love me tender.
-- Laurie Anderson

#Kings #Shining #Midnight