Quotes by John Cale

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

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

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

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

"That's what my life is, writing songs."

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

"The avant-garde makes more sense to me."

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

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

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

"All of the sudden the audiences started getting younger and the spread of the attendance was really wide. I think it's as a result of the records selling more that they started following our careers."

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

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

"Time plays a role in almost every decision. And some decisions define your attitude about time."

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

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

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

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

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

"If you're all loaded up on love, you haven't got anywhere else to go."

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

"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."