Laurie Anderson: It's the tradition of American writers getting away i...

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

Laurie Anderson

firsts

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?

Laurie Anderson

yesterday interesting thinking

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.

Laurie Anderson

care people thinking

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.

Laurie Anderson

childhood kids people

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.

Laurie Anderson

doctors sorry believe

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

Laurie Anderson

happened

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.

Laurie Anderson

crash clubs want

I always wonder when people have any kind of spiritual and meditative practice especially if it's one designed in part to help them cope with things that seem unmanageable and to cope with something like death, if they're able to maintain that practice and maintain the equanimity at the time of death whether it's, you know, that person's or that person's loved one.

Laurie Anderson

practice spiritual people

Gut level is a good level to deal with life, and for me, I have to say that Buddhism makes sense for me because it's how I'm an artist.

Laurie Anderson

buddhism levels artist

Life goes by so fast. It's really - and a lot of times things happen so fast you don't know - how should I react.

Laurie Anderson

know-how should happens

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."

Laurie Anderson

dream want people

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

Laurie Anderson

audience excellent taste

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

Laurie Anderson

single-person able periods

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.

Laurie Anderson

buddhism artist authority

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.

Laurie Anderson

writing book people

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.

Laurie Anderson

buddhist powerful giving

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

Laurie Anderson

godlike god-complex artist

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.

Laurie Anderson

forget-you trying firsts

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

Laurie Anderson

being-famous care people

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

Laurie Anderson

strings eye looks

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