John Cale

“We'd hold a chord for three hours if we could.”

“The only reason we wore sunglasses onstage was because we couldn't stand the sight of the audience.”

“I'm impatient. I get twitchy. When I get that feeling I just go out and make something happen.”

“Even if you're improvising, the fact that beforehand you know certain things will work helps you make those improvisations successful. It really helps to have a certain amount of knowledge about musical structure.”

“When somebody grabs a movement, you're kind of locked into it. It's all par for the course.”

“We gave up on the idea of trying to make the record a good representation of the live performance.”

“People sort of know me for that solo piano music I did.”

“I learn from thinking about the future, what hasn't been done yet. That's kind of my constant obsession.”

“I like what the future holds. I don't like thinking about the past.”

“The avant-garde makes more sense to me.”

“In cities like New York and Austin, there's much more of a social context for music than in other places.”

“I'm writing a movie about Mozart going to New York in the '60s. I've been reading so many novels.”

“I want to get lean and mean, keep it minimalist.”

“The value of having a computer, to me, is that it'll remember everything you do. It's a databank.”

“I'm content with making records, but I don't want to be doing the same thing all the time.”

“What I enjoy most about being on stage is that the natural instruments give you a greater freedom with texture. When you use natural instruments they have their own resonance.”

“I missed out on my teenage years. I led a sheltered life. I was practicing scales instead of playing football.”

“Growing up in Wales was a pretty Draconian experience with religion.”

“I never use the word, it's loaded. What love means to me is need.”

“That's what my life is, writing songs.”