John Cale Quotes

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

John Cale

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

John Cale

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

John Cale

#4. It would be a stronger world, a stronger, loving world, to die in.

John Cale

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

John Cale

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

John Cale

#7. That's what my life is, writing songs.

John Cale

#8. The avant-garde makes more sense to me.

John Cale

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

John Cale

#10. 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.

John Cale

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

John Cale

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

John Cale

#13. 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.

John Cale

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

John Cale

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

John Cale

#16. I am a ham. I've no business being rock 'n' roll. I've said it over and over again that I'm a classical composer, dishevelling my personality by dabbling in rock 'n' roll.

John Cale

#17. In the studio you have pretty much carte blanche with whatever you're doing. You can turn natural instruments into electronic instruments.

John Cale

#18. Everyone should be encouraged ... in spiration and artistic freedom is the cornerstone of rock and roll.

John Cale

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

John Cale

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

John Cale

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

John Cale

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

John Cale

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

John Cale

#24. I like it here in New York. I like the idea of having to keep eyes in the back of your head all the time.

John Cale

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

John Cale

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

John Cale

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

John Cale

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

John Cale

#29. 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.

John Cale