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But On A Utilitarian Level, I Realize That To Try To Accomplish The Greatest Good For The Greatest Number Of People, Sometimes We Have To Become Salesmen For What We Believe, And Part Of Being A Salesman Is Being Effective.

-Moby

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But On A Utilitarian

Moby

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But On A Utilitarian Level, I Realize That To Try To Accomplish The Greatest Good For The Greatest Number Of People, Sometimes We Have To Become Salesmen For What We Believe, And Part Of Being A Salesman Is Being Effective.

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I Was On Food Stamps Until I Was 18 And Became An Adult.

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Congratulations

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The Idea Of Feeling Old Is Much More The Worry Of A Slightly Younger Person. When You Are Getting Old, That Becomes - Psssh - Completely Secondary To The Absolute Understanding Of How Short Your Life Is.

I Don't Have Children, But I Imagine If Parents Are Really Pushed On The Subject, They Probably Have Favorite Children.

I Grew Up Obsessed With Science Fiction, And When I Was Really Young, I Wanted To Be A Scientist.

For Me To Speak Out Against The War In Iraq, You Know - Most Of My Fans Are Lefties Anyway, So I Don't Really Get Much Flack For It.

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When Famous People Are Nice To Me, It Feels Good, So I'm Happy To Hang Out With Them. It's Better Than Being At Home, Depressed, Reading 'the Hobbit.'

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I Buy Things With The Best Of Intention Of Living In Them And Then Life Intercedes.

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My Goal Is To Make One-not A Hodgepodge, But Just The Sort Of Record That I Would Want To Listen To.

To Me, One Of The Easiest Ways Of Addressing Climate Change And Potentially Remedying Climate Change Is To Stop Subsidizing Animal Agriculture.

I'm A Weird, Bald Musician Who Makes Records In His Bedroom And Lives In The Lower East Side.

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When Playing Big Festivals, I Tend To Play Big, Over The Top Techno Tracks, Like Hands In The Air Songs That Make Sense Being Played In Front Of 30,000 People. I Steer Away From Subtlety In The Interests Of Big Bombastic Dance Music.

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I Find The Fact That So Few People Buy Albums To Be Strangely Emancipating. There's Absolutely No Reason For 99% Of Musicians Making Albums To Think About Actually Selling Albums. So As A Musician You Can Just Make An Album For The Love Of Making Albums.

I Walk Out My Front Door In New York And I'm Out On The Street And There Are People Everywhere. L.a. Is So Much More Spread Out, So It's Really Easy In L.a. To Have A Little More Isolation And To Just Not See As Many People.

I Love The Idea Of Making Records That People Can Use, Records That Have A Sense Of Utility.

I Love Lots Of Different Types Of Music, But It's Music That Has This Up-swelling Of Beauty And Emotion That Is Most Important To Me.

I Live In New York And I Love Hanging Out In Gay Clubs, And A Lot Of My Friends Are Gay. But, For Better Or For Worse, I'm Not Gay.

So Man's Insanity Is Heaven's Sense, And Wandering From All Mortal Reason, Man Comes At Last To That Celestial Thought, Which, To Reason, Is Absurd And Frantic; And Weal Or Woe, Feels Then Uncompromised, Indifferent As His God.

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I'm Sure Most People Have This Experience: When You're Young You Drink, You Do Drugs, You Stay Up Late, And There Are No Consequences.

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That's The One Thing You Wake Up With Every Day: How Long Have I Got Left? And That's The Saddest Thing In The World, Because You Have This Absolute Realization That Everything You Love You're Going To Have To Let Go Of And Give Up. I Look At My Daughter And I Think, There's Going To Be A Point Where I'm Not Going To Be Around For Her. Even The Thought Of That Breaks My Heart.

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I'm Actually Cautiously Optimistic That Donald Trump Will Be So Bad That He Will Force America To Wake Up And Realise That Forcing America To Vote For Right Wing Republicans Is Always A Terrible Idea. It's Never Been A Good Idea, But What Happened Here Is You Have A President Like Obama Who Gives You Eight Years Of Relative Stability And Prosperity, And People Forget That Republicans Are Just Terrible, Not Just For The Country But For The Planet. Maybe This Is America's Equivalent Of Bottoming Out, Like A Crystal Meth Addict Going On One Last Big Run Before They Have To Get Sober.

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I Think We’re Like Farm Animals Before An Earthquake.

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In 1991 I Did An Interview Wherein I Described Myself As A 'teetotal Christian,' Which Was An Exaggeration, Although I Do Like Tea And Christ.

Personally I Find The Democratic Chaos Of The Internet Fascinating, And For The Most Part Really Benign.

The Most Emotional Part Is When I Go Into My Studio Every Day And Pretty Much Never Have An Idea Of What's Gonna Happen.

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It Will Be Interesting To See What The Long Term Fruits Of Our National Apathy Will Be, 'cos So Far They've Been Pretty Foul.

I Like Noise. It's Always Puzzled Me Why One Of The Goals Of Contemporary Recording Is To Get Rid Of Noise And To Eliminate Any Element Of A Performance.

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I Find London Really Exciting But There's A Lot Of Vicious Success Here. Like New York, There's A Lot Of Incredibly Successful People Who Feel Incredibly Entitled, Perhaps Justifiably, But I Don't Want To Be Around Viciously Entitled People.

Why Can't A Democrat Get Fired Up About Protecting The Environment And Enacting Gun Control Legislation Just As Right Wing Republicans Get Fired Up About Making Sure That Children Have Access To Assault Weapons And Banning 'the Catcher In The Rye' And 'harry Potter'?

Assault Weapons

Since I Was Really Little, I've Just Always Had An Obsession With, Not Just Science Fiction, But Science And Space. And Also Because As Time Passes And The More Advanced Science Becomes, The More Interesting It Becomes.

Over Time, I Started Becoming More And More Aware Of The Vastness And Complexity Of The Universe, Which Led Me Away From Any Sort Of Conventional Christianity.

I Love Nyc. It's The City Of My Birth And Probably The Most Amazing City On The Planet.

There Was A Time When I Was Way Too Reliant Upon Other People's Opinions And Perspective Of Me. And I Guess Over Time Came To See How Unhealthy That Was. I Mean It's Almost Like A Sign Of Mental Illness To Base Your Self-worth On The Opinions Of Complete Strangers.

You Could Spend Every Waking Moment Online And Still Only Experience One-trillionth Of What's Out There. I Find That A Little Overwhelming.

I've Been An Animal Rights Activist And A Vegan For 28 Years. The Entire Time, I've Asked Myself: How Do I Best Advance An Animal Rights Agenda?

You Can Sit Down With Reason Or Ableton And Literally In A Couple Of Hours Make A Very Good-sounding Record. But Then A Lot Of People Become Contented With That, Rather Than Pushing Themselves To Making Something That Sounds Great.

Somehow, Magically, I've Become An Electronic Musician, And I Have A Recording Studio That Looks Like The Bridge Of The Enterprise.

The Reason I Didn't Like Cocaine Is It Made Me Do Stupid Things, Have Stupid Conversations, And Stay Awake Until 11 O'clock In The Morning Unable To Think, Read, Sleep Or Speak.

Dogs Have Boundless Enthusiasm But No Sense Of Shame. I Should Have A Dog As A Life Coach.

As An American, No One Expected Donald Trump To Ever Be A Serious Candidate For President. I Don't Think He Even Expected To Be A Serious Candidate. He Wanted The Free Media He Would Get.

The Progressive Movement Needs More Crazy And Amoral/immoral Right-wing Politicians And Pundits Like Tom Delay And Newt Gingrich And Ann Coulter And Sean Hannity.

I'm Perfectly Happy For My Videos To Be On Youtube, Whether I'm Getting Paid For Them Or Not. If They're On Youtube, People Will See Them. If For Some Reason My Videos Get Taken Down From Youtube, Well, I Apologize. If It Was Up To Me They'd All Be Up There And They'd All Be Free.

We Almost Need To Cultivate - I Hate To Sound New Age-y - But To Cultivate A Positive Bias, And Really Work To Focus On Those Things And Notice Those Things That Are Wonderful And Uplifting.

I Remind Myself That The Universe Is 15 Billion Years Old, And I'm Only 46 Years Old, So My Perspective Is Sort Of Limited And Fear-based And Skewed.

A Vegan Who Beats His Wife Is Far Further Down The Ethical Ladder Than A Meat Eater Who's Kind To His Children.

I Learned In The Last Few Years That It's Really Unhappy And Really Unsustainable To Try And Base Your Well Being On Something As Arbitrary As Record Sale And Critical Acclaim And The Interests Of The Public. All Of Those Things Are So Fickle. So My Approach Now To Music Is I Want To Make Records That I Love, And I Hope That Other People Love Them, Then That's Ok.

I Can't Think Of Any Musician Or Producer Who Has Influenced Me More Than Brian Eno. From When He Was In Roxy Music, Producing Devo, The Talking Heads And My Life In The Bush Of Ghosts.

At The Risk Of Sounding Pedestrian, I'll Be Completely Honest: The First Thing I Do In The Morning Is Check Google News, Partially Because It Seems Sort Of Random And Unbiased And Partially Because I Tend To Stay In Hotels That Don't Necessarily Have The Fastest Internet Connections.

I Have To Say That Being A Vegan In 1986 Or Whenever Was A Lot Different Than Being A Vegan In 2012. You'd Go To Health Foods Stores And Basically Your Choice Was Between Mung Beans And Nutritional Yeast, And That's About It.

I Have No Patience For Anyone Who Thinks They've Figured Things Out, No Patience For People Who Think They're Right At The Expense Of Everyone Else. The World Is Too Connected And Too Complicated To Conform To Any Of Our Rigid Ideas Of What It Should Be Like.

One Of The Goals Of A Spiritual Practice Is Self-awareness, And One Of The Best Tools Of Self-awareness Is Simple Emotional Vulnerability.

Over Time I Just Realised The World Is A Very Complicated Place, And There Is Not A Single Structured Belief System That Adequately And Comprehensively Describes Every Aspect Of Our Existence. So That Is My New Approach To Life And Spirituality - I Don't Know Anything, Except On A Very Naive And Subjective Level.

The Average Life Expectancy Of A Celebrity Is 20 Years Less Than Someone Working In A Coal Mine.

There's Really No Reason For Any Musician, Writer, Actor To Ever Take Themselves Seriously. If You Work In A Needle Exchange, Take Yourself Seriously. You're Doing Good Work. If You're Involved In Hostage Negotiations And Saving Lives, You Can Have A Sense Of Entitlement.

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I Don't Want To Get Too Nuanced, But We Have The Electoral College In The United States And That Means We Don't Have Direct Democracy.

How Do I Transform Pain. I Guess The Number One Way In Which I Do That Is By Working On Music, But Also It Can Be Anything From Just Talking About It With Other People Or Doing Kickboxing Or Meditating Or Running Around With Dogs. Or Just Simply Trying To Sit With It And Be Mindful And Be Aware Of It.

I've Had My Charlie Sheen Moments, It Was Usually Just At The Mars Bar On The Corner Of First Avenue With Me And A Few Homeless Guys.

Sometimes People Will Think, I Need To Have Pre-sanctioned Spiritual Joy. Getting Joy From My Contemplative Meditation Practice Or Getting Joy From Reading Thich Nhat Hahn Books. Those Things Can Be Joyful But I Think It’s The Small, Simple Joys Of Playing With Dogs Or Having Sex With Someone You Love Or Going For A Walk Outside, Stuff That We Tend To Ignore.

The People Who Get More Fame, Who Get More Money, More Often Than Not They Are Miserable, Insecure And On Anti-depressants. It's Strange That Everyone Keeps Buying Into This Idea That More Success Is Good, That More Fame Is Good, That More Money Is Good. Yet, We Look At The People Who Have More Success, More Fame, More Money And They're Miserable.

I'd Much Rather Go To A Banksy Art Show Than A Moby Art Show. My Art Is Painfully Naive.

Basically We Should Stop Doing Those Things That Are Destructive To The Environment, Other Creatures, And Ourselves And Figure Out New Ways Of Existing.

I Remind Myself That The Universe Is 15 Billion Years Old, And I'm Only 46 Years Old, So My Perspective Is Sort Of Limited And Fear-based And Skewed. So I Sort Of Turn Things Over To Whatever You Want To Call It - Whether It's God, Or The Universe Or The Spirit Of The Universe - And I Just Sort Of Turn Things Over To God And Hope That This Spirit That Has Been Around For 15 Billion Years Will Have A Better Understanding Of How Things Should Be Than I Do.

I Don't Think Of Myself As A Singer; I Usually End Up Singing When I Can't Find Anyone Better To Sing, Or When I'm Too Lazy To Find Someone Better.

It's Enshrined In Our Constitution That An Individual Has A Right To Release Information And Disseminate Information That Makes The Powers That Be Uncomfortable.

Keep Your Weather Eye Open, And Sing Out Every Time.

When I Tour I'm Going To Countries To Play Music For People. My Presence In A Country Is Not An Endorsement Or A Condemnation Of That Country's Policies. My Presence In A Country Is An Effort To Connect With People Through Playing Music.

I Wish I Could Sing. I Don't Technically Have A Terrible Voice, But It's Certainly Not As Good As Most Of My Friends. Whenever I Hear Myself On A Record, It Just Reminds Me I'm Not A Very Good Singer.

I Always Just Made Music That Resonates With Me Emotionally.

I Wanted To Have A Title That Wasn't In English So That Someone In France, For Instance, Could Ask For 'dix-huit' Or The Someone In Japan Could Ask For 'juhachi.'

It's Sometimes Too Easy To Point Fingers When Circumstances Dramatically Go Awry, But As An Addict, I'm Ultimately Responsible For My Own Decisions, No Matter How Benign Or Tragic The Consequences.

Everyone Feels Awkward, Everyone Feels Uncomfortable, Everyone Gets Older, Everyone Gets Lonely, Everyone Gets Sick, Everyone Eventually Dies.

One Problem With A Lot Of Musicians Is That They Remove Themselves In A Studio And Make A Record And Assume People Are Going To Pay Attention To It Just Because They've Made It.

Shaving Your Head Is Acceptable. It's When You Start Wearing Toupees And Brushing Your Hair Over That Things Go Wrong.

One Simple Word: Ugh. Is Something Still Considered A Conspiracy If It's Played Out Right Under Our Noses?

What Makes Me Feel Old Is Having No Hair On The Top Of My Head.

New York Has Inspired More Remarkable Music Than Any Other City I Can Think Of.

I Was In Bar About 15 Years Ago, A Relationship Had Ended Badly, I Was Very Drunk And I Thought I Would Convince Myself To Try And Be Gay. Like, At One Point I Didn't Like Coffee, Then I Learned To Like It.

If You're Inclined To Dismiss L.a. As A Place Of Unrelenting Vapidity And Generic 1980s Architecture, Then You're Doing Yourself And L.a. A Huge Disservice, And You're Just Not Looking Hard Enough.

In 1992 I Was Doing One Of My First Ever Tours And I Was In Heathrow Airport And I Saw These Middle-aged Musicians Who Had Clearly Been On Tour For Decades, And They All Looked Haggard And Unhappy And Unhealthy. I Vowed To Myself That I Would Never Be That Person. Flash Forward 20 Years And I Found Myself In Heathrow Looking Haggard And Unhappy And Unhealthy. I Decided I Would Rather Spend My Time Staying Home Working On Music And Making Dinner With Friends, Instead Of Spending Six Months In A Hotel In A State Of Depressing Suspended Adolescence.

There Is Nothing Terribly Wrong With My Face, Even If Some Of Its Parts Aren't Very Inspiring.

That’s Why I Make Music. When I Listen To My Favorite Music Made By Other People, That’s What It Does To Me. So As A Musician, I’m Just Trying To Do The Same Thing With Music I Make. Sometimes It Works, Sometimes It Doesn’t. But When Someone Comes To Me And Says The Music I’ve Made Has Affected Them Emotionally, That’s The Most Gratifying Part Of My Job.

But When A Man’s Religion Becomes Really Frantic; When It Is A Positive Torment To Him; And In Fine, Makes This Earth Of Ours An Uncomfortable Inn To Lodge In; Then I Think It High Time To Take That Individual Aside And Argue The Point With Him.

I Like The Humility That Comes From Being Hated. Hopefully Some Humility And Compassion Comes Out Of That.

I've Been Making Music For Thirty-six Years And, You Know, I'm Still Just As In Love With Working On Music Now As I Was Thirty-six Years Ago.

I Feel Like The Vast Majority Of The World's Problems Would Disappear If Suddenly Everyone On The Planet Were Relatively Self-aware And Capable Of Honest Self-love And Compassion.

There Are Certain Songs That If People Come Up To Me And Tell Me How Much That Song Meant To Them, I Think, You Should Have Better Taste, Then, Because I Don't Really Like That Song.

The Main Thing That Excites Me And Makes Me Want To Get Out Of Bed Is The Thought Of Being Able To Go Into My Studio To Work On Music.

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