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Laurie Anderson

Laurie Anderson Books

Artist

Laurie Anderson, born on June 5, 1947, is an American artist known for her multimedia performances, visual art, and music. Her works blend sound, visual, and performance art, exploring themes of personal identity, technology, and culture.

Laurie Anderson

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United States Reprint edition by Anders...

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“and there was a beautiful view but nobody could see cause everybody on the island was saying look at me”

Author:Laurie Anderson

“Oh, another day, another dime. Another day in America. Another day, another dollar. Another day in America. And oh my brothers and oh my long lost sisters. How do we begin again? How do we begin?”

America American Dream American Culture Another Day In America

Author:Laurie Anderson

“Hey! Pal! How do I get to town from here? And he ssid: Well, just take a right where they're gonna build that new shopping mall, go straight past where they're gonna put in the freeway, take a left at what's gonna be the new sports center, and keep going until you hit the place where they´re thiinking of building that drive-in bank. You can't miss it. And I said: This must be the place.”

Usa Blight Environmental Destruction Suburban Life Urban Sprawl Urban Development Sprawl American Progress

Book:United States Reprint edition by Anderson, Laurie (1984) Paperback

Source: United States Reprint edition by Anderson, Laurie (1984) Paperback

“Hey! Pal! How do I get to town from here? And he said: Well, just take a right where they're gonna build that new shopping mall, go straight past where they're gonna put in the freeway, take a left at what's gonna be the new sports center, and keep going until you hit the place where they´re thinking of building that drive-in bank. You can't miss it. And I said: This must be the place.”

Usa Blight Environmental Degradation Suburban Life Urban Sprawl Urban Development Sprawl American Progress

Book:United States Reprint edition by Anderson, Laurie (1984) Paperback

Source: United States Reprint edition by Anderson, Laurie (1984) Paperback

“It was like the Dutch Astronaut I met who had a theory about technology. His take was that technology is actually a new kind of parasite that began to develop consciousness about 100 years ago and which, like all parasites, is gradually taking over its host, strangling the life out of it.”

Technology Parasite

Author:Laurie Anderson

“It’s like that door you find one day, way at the back of your closet. And then you go into the closet and turn the knob and open it. And outside there it is: the immense Caribbean. And you can’t believe it. You’ve lived here for so long and you never knew that all this was right here the whole time.”

Reality Imagination Woke Alternate Reality

Author:Laurie Anderson

“There was an old married couple and they had always hated each other. Never been able to stand the sight of each other really. And when they were in their nineties they finally got divorced and people said: Why did you wait so long? Why didn't you do this a whole lot earlier? And they said: Well, we wanted to wait until the children died.”

Marriage Divorce Another Day In America

Author:Laurie Anderson

“Freedon is a scary thing. Most people don't want it.”

People Want Freedom Scary Scary Things

Author:Laurie Anderson

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

Want Might Artist Term Performances Best Things

Author:Laurie Anderson

“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.”

Ifs Together Talking Tree Figures Legs If I Could Insects Breeze Talk To Me

Book:Laurie Anderson

Source: Laurie Anderson

“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.”

Knows Looks I Can Two Light Eye Crazy Drink Tiny Nuts Cigarette Light Up Pictures Of Myself

Author:Laurie Anderson

“They say that Heaven is like TV... a perfect little world, that doesn't really need you.”

World Needs Littles Heaven Perfect Tvs Need You

Author:Laurie Anderson

“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?”

Thinking Looks Important Found Interesting Tomorrow Illusion Yesterday Most Interesting Interesting Things

Author:Laurie Anderson

“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.”

Mind Real Certain Realizing Watches Unreal

Author:Laurie Anderson

“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?”

Ifs Persons Young Artist Wonder Jazz Pops Hey Opera Vague Young Artists Multimedia

Author:Laurie Anderson

“Long live the beauty that comes down and through and onto all of us.”

Author:Laurie Anderson

“Books are the way the dead talk to the living.”

Author:Laurie Anderson

“I know a lot of people who have weird specialties that are not taught in schools; they're things that you learn in life.”

People Knows School Taught Specialty

Author:Laurie Anderson

“I always feel like if someone has stage fright, I really try and say, "Listen, these people want you to succeed, they want to have a good evening. They want to see something really great. They don't want to see something crappy. They don't. They want to be at something really special."”

People Ifs Want Feels Trying Special Stage Succeed Evening Really Great Fright Stage Fright Good Evening

Author:Laurie Anderson

“The audience creates its own personality, I've noticed, in the first five minutes. They will either be generous, funny, silly, withholding, academic, analytical, grudging. And I'm fascinated with how that gets constructed, because it happens right away.”

Firsts Happens Audience Five Minutes Personality Silly Generous Fascinated Academic Five Minutes Withholding

Author:Laurie Anderson

“Audiences, whether they're seeing a film or a reading or whatever it is, a concert, they decide very quickly what kind of show it is, and then they judge it. They judge the rest of the thing by whether it conforms to their rules for what a good symphony orchestra would be.”

Kind Shows Would Be Film Reading Audience Seeing Judging Concerts Conform Orchestra Symphony Symphony Orchestras

Author:Laurie Anderson

“There are plenty of ways you can play the game of fighting and really seem to be fighting without going for the jugular.”

Way Play Seems Fighting Games Plenty

Author:Laurie Anderson

“I really trust audiences as having excellent taste, for the most part.”

Audience Taste Excellent

Author:Laurie Anderson

“I genuinely have never been in an audience where most people want that person to fail. I've never been in an audience like that, and I've never seen it as a performer. Only in my dreams, in which case they are always throwing tomatoes and going, "This is the most boring thing I've ever seen."”

People Want Persons Dream Cases Audience Failing Boring Performers Throwing Tomatoes Boring Things

Author:Laurie Anderson

“No single person who has ever lived will be able to tell you what happens. Period. Nobody's right and nobody's wrong.”

Persons Happens Able Periods Single Person

Author:Laurie Anderson

“The main thing that attracts me to Buddhism is probably what attracts every artist to being an artist - that it's a godlike thing. You are the ultimate authority. There is no other ultimate authority.”

Artist Buddhism Authority Ultimate Being An Artist Godlike

Author:Laurie Anderson

“I don't care about being famous or having a lot of people go, "She's really good."”

People Care Don't Care I Don't Care Being Famous

Author:Laurie Anderson

“Being an artist is a totally godlike thing to do - and I have a god complex.”

Artist Complexes Things To Do Being An Artist Godlike God Complex

Author:Laurie Anderson

“I'm thrilled by the fact that I made something out of nothing. There it is! It wasn't there before: there it is - I made it! That's pretty powerful, and that's the power that Buddhists give to every single person.”

Giving Persons Made Facts Powerful Made It Buddhist Single Person

Author:Laurie Anderson

“That's really a very different experience: You don't have to look to be understood. You're already understood.”

Looks Different Understood Different Experiences

Author:Laurie Anderson

“People who were born alone are defined by feelings like "Who's gonna be with me when I die? Who will ever understand me? Will I always feel so alone? Maybe if I write a book..." and you forget that that doesn't help you so much.”

People Ifs Feels Writing Book Helping Feelings Dies Born Forget Defined Understand Me Born Alone

Author:Laurie Anderson

“Not many people care what you do. They care about what you do as much as you care about what they do. Think about it. Just exactly that much. You are not the center of the universe.”

People Thinking Care Universe Center Of The Universe

Author:Laurie Anderson

“When I was four, I was a kind of sky worshipper. I would look at the sky, and I wanted to evaporate into the sky - I loved the sky. I loved looking at the trees, just because they touched the sky.”

Looks Kind Wanted Four Tree Sky Touched Worshippers

Author:Laurie Anderson

“If I'm confused, I just spend some time looking at the sky and falling into it. It's not a meditation that anyone taught me, it's something I've done my whole life, and liked doing, and it made me feel like nothing.”

Ifs Feels Made Done Whole Fall Meditation Sky Taught Whole Life Confused I'm Confused

Author:Laurie Anderson

“I'm one of the first Americans who wasn't a torturer or an interrogator.”

Author:Laurie Anderson

“It's a little hard to speak when you're not supposed to move.”

Littles Hard Moving Speak

Author:Laurie Anderson

“I'm actually not someone who believes in heaven or anything like that.”

Author:Laurie Anderson

“I didn't really understand that Vipassana is a relatively new form of Buddhism that was based on the storage of pain. So the idea is that every time you don't scream, that's your Buddhist side.”

Ideas Pain Form Sides Buddhism Buddhist Scream Storage Vipassana

Author:Laurie Anderson

“I wanted to stay hooked because it was the first time I've been part of the tradition where forgetting was just fine. You do it, you try, you forget, you fail.”

Trying Firsts Wanted Forget Failing Fine First Time Tradition Forget You Hooked

Author:Laurie Anderson

“Dogs don't just like us, they love us, and they admire us. The big reason they admire us is we invented cars. They're like, "Yes, we get to go somewhere!" Go somewhere faster, with their head out the window, and their ears, like, "Yes! Yes!"”

Reason Bigs Dog Car Window Ears Admire Faster

Author:Laurie Anderson

“I realized why movie scores are mostly strings, because it really frees your eyes to look around.”

Looks Eye I Realized Score Strings

Author:Laurie Anderson

“The right to carry a gun has nothing to do with the rights of other people.”

People Rights Gun

Author:Laurie Anderson

“Art can be engaged in the world without being specifically politically engaged.”

World Art Engaged

Author:Laurie Anderson

“It's the tradition of American writers getting away in order to see the country - to get a better view.”

Country Order Views Tradition Get Away American Writer

Author:Laurie Anderson

“Technology today is the campfire around which we tell our stories. There's this attraction to light and to this kind of power, which is both warm and destructive. We're especially drawn to the power. Many of the images of technology are about making us more powerful, extending what we can do. Unfortunately, 95 percent of this is hype, because I think we're powerful without it.”

Thinking Kind Stories Light Today Can Do Powerful Technology Percent Warm Attraction Destructive Hype Extending Campfire

Author:Laurie Anderson

“I am a New Yorker, one; I'm an artist, two; I'm a woman, three.”

Two Artist Three New Yorkers

Author:Laurie Anderson

“I wanted to impress people because I was kind of a kid who was lost in the crowd - was sort of my, feeling about childhood was being part of a big family.”

People Kind Feelings Bigs Kids Wanted Lost Childhood Crowds Impress Big Families

Author:Laurie Anderson

“I kind of didn't believe the doctors when they came over and they said you're not going to be able to walk again. I'm sorry to tell you this. I thought who is this guy? I just was so impatient with the whole thing. I knew I was going to walk again. I knew that I was going to do that.”

Believe Kind Said Whole Able Guy Walks Doctors Sorry I'm Sorry They Said This Guy Impatient

Author:Laurie Anderson

“So many things have happened to me in my life that I could be phobic about.”

Author:Laurie Anderson

“What happens when you're in a crash is you join a crash club, and you talk endlessly about your crash because you don't want to bore your friends with it. And they've heard about the crash so many times.”

Want Happens Heard Clubs Bores Crash

Author:Laurie Anderson

About the Author

Born: June 5, 1947
Known for: Artist
Quotes: 111

Related Topics

People Kind Thinking Artist Ifs Knows Trying Looks Want Art

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Laurie AndersonRelated source material

United States Reprint edition by Anderson, Laurie (1984) PaperbackRelated source material

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