If you want to make someone feel emotion, you have to make them let go. Listening to something is an act of surrender.

I have lived in countries that were coming out of conflict: Ireland, South Africa, the Czech republic. People there are overflowing with energy.

Ambient music must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

Stop thinking about art works as objects, and start thinking about them as triggers for experiences.

The first Velvet Underground album only sold 10,000 copies, but everyone who bought it formed a band

I had wanted a tape recorder since I was tiny. I thought it was a magic thing. I never got one until just before I went to art school.

My guitar only has five strings 'cause the top one broke and I decided not to put it back on: when I play chords I only play bar chords, and the top one always used to cut me there.

Lyrics are always misleading because they make people think that that's what the music is about.

Everything is an experiment until it has a deadline. That gives it a destination, context, and a reason.

Well, I am a dilettante. It's only in England that dilettantism is considered a bad thing. In other countries it's called interdisciplinary research.

Ambient Music must be able to accommodate many levels of listening attention without enforcing one in particular; it must be as ignorable as it is interesting.

I went back to the women and said, 'Tell me exactly what you want us to do.' And they said, 'Don't do anything for us, do somethingfor our children'.

Women get desperate, but they don't understand despair.

Sometimes the man of your dream only belongs in your dream.

Stop saying you're not racist because you have a friend that's black. That's like saying you're not a pedophile because you have a friend that's a kid.

I learned then that practically no one in the world is entirely bad or entirely good, and that motives are often more important than actions.

I know as a fan of music I want my favorite artists to give me as much content and music as possible , so that is what I am trying to do.

We are rarely wrong when we act from impulse.

On Ain't No Telling I came up with the bass solo.

I’d much rather have good teeth than have diamonds and roses drop out of my mouth whenever I said something

What I found does the most good is just to get into a taxi and go to Tiffany's. It calms me down right away, the quietness and the proud look of it;nothing very bad could happen to you there.