Laurie Anderson Quotes

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I think women are excellent social critics.
Laurie Anderson

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 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

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

Something that has so much power must have life. Instruments have life.
Laurie Anderson

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

The thing that's characteristic of my performance is that I literally do drag the whole studio onto the stage.
Laurie Anderson

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

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

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

Writing about music is like dancing about architecture.
Laurie Anderson