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I Found It Incredibly Disheartening That In The Late '90s, Suddenly Pop Culture Became Even More Misogynistic And More Homophobic, And So I Criticized Eminem For Having Lyrics That Were Egregiously Homophobic And Egregiously Misogynistic.

-Moby

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I Found It Incredibly

Moby

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I Found It Incredibly Disheartening That In The Late '90s, Suddenly Pop Culture Became Even More Misogynistic And More Homophobic, And So I Criticized Eminem For Having Lyrics That Were Egregiously Homophobic And Egregiously Misogynistic.

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What Makes Me Vulnerable Is Any Genuine Expression Of Emotion In The Presence Of Another Person. It Makes Me Vulnerable And My Inclination Is, Of Course, Immediately To Back Away From Anything That Makes Me Vulnerable.

I Met Elton John At An Interview Dinner, And We Just Sort Of Became Friends. He's Got Such A Wicked Sense Of Humor.

I Like Being Vegan, I Think It's Good For My Health.

Scotland Is One Of My Favourite Places To Perform: It's Really Something Special. Scottish Audiences Are Just So Enthusiastic; Their Approach To Dance Music Just Feels Similar To My Own Somehow.

When You Look At The Consequences Of Climate Change, At Rainforest Deforestation, At Antibiotic Resistance, These Are Not Necessarily Political Issues, But Rather Issues That Have The Ability To Threaten Our Species.

I Have No Perspective As Regards My Work. One Reason I Put Out Records And Books Is People Respond To It, And It Enables You To Actually See The Work More Clearly. It's A Form Of Therapy For Me. Sometimes Abusive Therapy.

Every Single Day The World Seems Like It Is On The Brink Of Falling Apart. But Then I Look Outside My Window, And Things Look About The Same As They Did A Week Ago. It's Almost A Form Of Cognitive Dissonance.

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.'

I'm Definitely A Fan Of Public Humiliation.

If Someone Is Cynical And Doesn't Vote And Ends Up With A Crummy Job In A Crummy Country With A Decimated Environment, They Only Have Themselves To Blame.

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.

If I Found Myself Married With Children And Had Tons Of Puppies And A Fun Place To Live, I Imagine I'd Be Happier, But I Kind Of Like Being A Little Bit Isolated And Lonely.

When I Can Really Open Myself Up To Someone And Show Someone Who I Really Am, It's Amazing When It Happens.

I’ve Never Seen The Need To Choose One Type Of Music At The Exclusion Of Another. That Would Feel Kind Of Sad And Arbitrary.

The Demise Of The Monolithic Record Industry Has Been, For A Lot Of People, Really Liberating And Emancipating.

For Me, New York Still Ranks As The Most Beautiful And The Most Interesting City In The World. It Is Also The Most Varied In Terms Of The Things It Has To Offer.

When I Went To University, I Was A Philosophy Major, But Because I'm Not Very Bright I Chose To Study Philosophy At A Performing Arts School, Maybe Because The Philosophy Program There Wasn't Too Rigorous Or Challenging.

For Me My Biggest Inspiration Is Trying To Make Music That Effects Me As Much As The Music Made By My Heroes.

You Make Mistakes And You Learn From Them.

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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.

One Can Only Snort So Many Ants And Have So Much Sex Before One Starts To Long For The Comfort And Companionship Of A Good Book.

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.

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

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.

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.

When I Do Have Time To Work On Music, I'm Kind Of Selfish, And Would Rather Work On My Own Stuff Than Someone Else's.

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.

A Few Years Ago, Before I Stopped Drinking, I Was Feeling Very Sorry For Myself And Very Drunk, And I Googled 'moby Sucks'. In Less Than One Second Something Like 20 Million Responses Came Up... Yeah, There Has Been A Lot Of Loathing Directed Towards Me, And It Used To Drive Me Crazy.

In A Perfect World, I Would Be 6-foot-3 And Have A Perfect Head Of Hair And Look Like Orlando Bloom.

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.

I Love That Vinyl Is Actually Growing In Popularity, And That There Are So Many Great Record Stores.

When You're Signed To A Big Label You're Always In The Position Of Convincing Them, Especially Now Because Labels Are Barely Keeping The Lights On, So Getting Them To Spend A Little Bit Of Money Is Really Hard.

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

Have I Dated A Supermodel? Of Course Not. I'd Look Ridiculous.

I Love Thich Nhat Hahn. One Of My Favorite Quotes Of His (and I’m Paraphrasing), He’s Talking About Cultivating Happiness, And He Was Saying, At The Very Least, Just Be Happy You’re Not At The Dentist Right Now. He Was Talking To Someone Who Was Having A Really Hard Time Finding Joy.

When I Say, 'i Love Christ And Love The Teachings Of Christ,' I Mean That In The Most Simple And Naive Way. I'm Not Saying I'm Right.

Over Time, I Started Becoming More Aware Of The Vastness And Complexity Of The Universe, Which Led Me Away From Any Sort Of Conventional Christianity. I Still Love The Teachings Of Christ, But I Also Believe That The Human Condition Prevents Us From Having Any True Objective Knowledge Of The Universe. All Human Belief Systems Are Inherently Flawed. If I Had To Label Myself Now, I'd Call Myself A Taoist-christian-agnostic Quantum Mechanic. Also, There's Nothing In The Actual Bible That Limits A Christian In Their Interest In Science. Anti-science Is A Function Of Ignorant Fundamentalism.

I Don't Know Many Artists Who Are Happy With Themselves All Of The Time.

Call Me A Nerd If You Like, But I Do Find It Hard To Leave Home Without My Laptop And A Good Book.

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Because I've Been That Drunk Person In The Club So Many Thousands Of Times, When I'm In An Environment Where People Are Drunk Or On Drugs, I Certainly Don't Judge Them. Because It's Almost A Given That For Much Of My Life I've Been Way More Messed Up Than Them.

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I Just Have To Remind Myself That My Daily Quotidie In Life Has Almost Nothing To Do With Any Aspect Of My Professional Life As A Public Figure. And I Think A Lot Of People Get To That Point - Specifically, Sort Of Getting Comfortable Looking Out For Yourself And Taking Care Of Yourself And Defining Yourself Based On Healthier Criteria, And Not Criteria That's Established By Complete Strangers That You've Never Met.

I Think The Ideal Job In That Alternative Universe Would Be To Lead Whitewater Rafting Trips Through The Grand Canyon. So Maybe I'd Be A Guy Leading Whitewater Rafting Trips At The Grand Canyon. Or Maybe A Professional Skydiver.

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When I Dj At Big Venues I Try To Play Tracks That I Would Want To Hear If I Were E'd Up In A Field With 50,000 Other People.

I Change My Mind About Things - For A While I Was Punk Rocker, And If You Weren't A Punk Rocker You Were An Apostate. Then I Was A Dance Music Enthusiast, And If You Weren't A Dance Music Enthusiast, You Were An Apostate. I Was Carnivore, And If You Were A Vegan, I Didn't Want To Talk To You. Then I Was Vegan, And If You Were A Carnivore I Didn't Want To Talk To You.

Up Until The Rise Of Electronic Music, If You Were A Musician In Portugal Or Germany Or Italy Or Japan, And You Didn't Sing In English, You Really Were Limited: You Could Be Successful In The Country Where People Understood Your Language. The World Of Electronic Music Is Completely International. You Have Djs From Finland Making Huge Records For People In New Zealand, Djs In South Korea Making Huge Records For People In France. By The Fact That It Doesn't Cost Anything To Make, And That It Transcends Language, Nation It Accidentally Accomplishes A Lot Of Really Remarkable Things.

It's Much Easier To Have A Diversified Career As An Electronic Musician Than It Is As A Drummer. Nothing Against Drummers. If You're A Drummer, You Just Wait Around For People To Ask You To Play Drums. But If You Have Your Own Studio And Can Make Music, You Have The Ability To Approach Music A Lot Differently.

To Truly Live A Creative Life Means That You Will Need To Experiment In As Many Different Fields As Possible.

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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.

I'm Not Trying To Look For Pity Or Sympathy. I Was Just Surprised That So Many People In The World Of Entertainment Seemed To Be Okay With Misogyny And Homophobia As Long As They Were Profiting From It.

More Often Than Not, Whenever Gossip Has Been Written About Me, The Gossip Is More Interesting Than The Reality. I Know Some Public Figures Hate Gossip, But Personally I Like It Because It Makes My Life Sound More Glamorous And Interesting Than It Really Is.

Never Have Public Feuds With Anyone Who's Surrounded By People Who Carry Guns.

Music Is Just Air Moving Around.

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Though In Many Of Its Aspects This Visible World Seems Formed In Love, The Invisible Spheres Were Formed In Fright.

I'd Just Rather Have A Really Sharp, Interesting, Smart Gay Son Than Some Big Dumb Hetero Meathead.

But At The Same Time, I Don't Let Myself Regret Things To The Point That I'm Paralyzed.

Musically, New York Is A Big Influence On Me. Walk Down The Street For Five Minutes And You'll Hear Homeless Punk Rockers, People Playing Caribbean Music And Reggae, Sacred Islamic Music And Latino Music, So Many Different Types Of Music.

For Years, My Mom Dated A Man Who Was Really Active In The Baptist Church In The Town Next To The Town I Grew Up In, And So He Used To Drag Me To These Baptist Church Services That Lasted Forever. I Remember That I Didn't Like The Church Services, But I Really Liked The Music.

One Of The Reasons Why Fundamentalists Are So Aggressive In Trying To Promote Fundamentalism Is Because Deep Down They Know It's Arbitrary. If You're Comfortable With Your Belief You Don't Need To Convince Other People To Agree With You.

When I Was Growing Up, All I Wanted To Do Was Fit In, But If You're Perpetually An Outsider, It Gives You A Perspective That Might Have A Little More Objectivity Than People Who Really Feel Connected To Their Social Environment In Which They Grow Up.

I Have Nothing Against Bombastic Music, But When It Comes To Making Albums, I'd Prefer To Make Music That Has A Sort Of Vulnerable Subtlety To It.

I Went To Columbia University Because They Were Doing A Study On People Who Suffered From Panic Attacks, And Because I Suffered From Panic Attacks My Whole Life, I Decided To Be A Part Of It. They Had This Questionnaire Where They Asked, How Many Units Of Alcohol Do You Have In A Month? The Top Answer Was 40 Or More, And I Got Really Scared Because I Was Having On Average 60 Or 70 Drinks A Week. And I Realized That That Was A Bad Sign.

One Of The Nice Things About Licensing Music To Movies Or Advertisements Is You Can Reach A Lot Of People Who Normally Wouldn't Hear Music.

I Taught Bible Study, And There Was Period Where I Thought All Of My Beliefs Were Right, And Everybody Who Disagreed With Me Was Wrong.

I Made A Record In 1996 Called 'animal Rights' That Was A Very Difficult, Very Dark Punk-rock Record. Of All The Records I've Made, It's My Favorite One. It's Also The One That Got The Worst Reviews And Sold The Worst.

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.

No One Wants To Be Hated, In Public, By Lots Of People.

If I Were To Be Really Petulant, I Would Say New York Is The One Doing The Betraying. Because The New York I Fell In Love With Doesn't Really Exist Anymore.

All I Want To Do With My Life Is Try And Make Music That I Really Love, And So Every Day I Try And Work On Music.

There's Nothing In The Actual Bible That Limits A Christian In Their Appreciation Of Or Interest In Science. Anti-science Is Purely A Function Of Ignorant Fundamentalism.

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.

For Example, You Can Go On All The Pro-life Chat Rooms And Say You're An Outraged Right-wing Voter And That You Know That George Bush Drove An Ex-girlfriend To An Abortion Clinic And Paid For Her To Get An Abortion.then You Go To An Anti-immigration Website Chat Room And Ask, "what's All This About George Bush Proposing Amnesty For Illegal Aliens?"

There Are So Many Musicians, Friends Of Mine, Who Play Shows For Ten People A Night, Or Always Desperately Wanted A Record Contract. So Even If Every Person On The Planet Loathes Me, I Have Nothing To Complain About. My Job Is Not A Bad Job, So I Can't Complain.

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.

I'd Much Rather Go Out And Have Music Randomly Presented To Me By Different Djs Than Stay Home And Discover It On My Own.

I Don't Think Too Much About How It Might Exist In The World In A Commercial Sense - I More Just Try And Focus On Making Music That I Love And Trying To Put It Out Into The World.

I Spent So Much Of My Life Reading About Spirituality And Reading About Neuroscience And Trying Different Meditation Practices. It's A Really Big Part Of My Life. But It's Sometimes Hard To Talk About. There Are So Many People In The World Who Don't Live In Southern California And Don't Spend Their Time Meditating.

I'm Not Sure How Healthy It Is To Shoot Police Helicopters With Bazookas.

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.

I'm Pretty Much A Realist. There's A Certain Age You Get To When You're Not Really Going To Be Shown Anymore.

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

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 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.

There Might Be A Lot Of Difference Between Republicans And Democrats On Key Social Issues Like Women's Rights And Health Care. But When It Comes To Taking Corporate Cash, They're Pretty Much The Same Beast.

I Would Drink And Drink And Then At 3 O'clock In The Morning Take Anything That Was Put In Front Of Me. And I'd Sometimes Be Disappointed When Conventional Things Were Put In Front Of Me. Like, I'd Do A Line Of Something And Be Disappointed To Find It Was Just Cocaine.

Once The Pathological Low Self-esteem Goes, That's When Things Go Downhill.

Should The Progressives In Germany In The 30s Have Tolerated The National Socialists? Of Course They Shouldn't Have.

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 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.

I Won't Complain About Touring, Because I Really Do Believe That A Public-figure Musician Complaining About Being A Public-figure Musician Is Just Absurd. Like, 'boo Hoo Hoo! I Have To Stand On Stage And People Pay Attention To Me!'

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.

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.

I've Worked With All Sorts Of Random People - Everybody From Metallica To Britney Spears To Ozzy Osbourne To Michael Jackson To The Beastie Boys. I've Got A Really Strange Cv. It's Interesting - I Work With A Lot Of These Disparate, Different People To Learn What It's Like To Work With Random People.

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

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.

I Realized The Universe Is 15 Billion Years Old And Unspeakably Complicated. I Still Love The Teachings Of Christ, But I Also Believe That The Human Condition Prevents Us From Having Any True Objective Knowledge And Understanding Of The Universe.

When I Was Growing Up, I Was The Most Pretentious Person I Have Ever Met. I Only Read Obscure Books And Watched Obscure Movies And Only Listened To Obscure Music.

I Think A Lot Of Self-importance Is A Product Of Fear. And Fear, Living In Sort Of An Un-self-examined Fear-based Life, Tends To Lead To Narcissism And Self-importance.

A Part Of Me Wants To Sort Of Try And Sound Cool And Feed This Myth That I'm Some Sort Of Glamorous Lothario, But I Was Raised By Women - My Mother And Her Mother And My Aunts - And As A Result, Most Of My Friends Have Always Been Women.

Nothing Can Stop Us Now 'cause We Are All Made Of Stars.

By Being Vulnerable, Either With Yourself Or In The Presence Of Another Person, That’s Where All Growth And Ultimate Well-being Comes From.

Since I Stopped Drinking My Love Life Has Taken A Really Serious Hit. Romantic Encounters That Seemed Like A Really Good Idea At Three O'clock In The Morning On The Lower East Side? Less So In Sobriety.

For Better Or Worse, I'm Interested In Just About Everything: Every Different Type Of Music I Can Imagine. I Can Never See A Reason To Choose Just One Type Of Music At The Exclusion Of Everything Else. Different Types Of Music Are Capable Of Being Rewarding In Different Kinds Of Ways.

Sacha Baron Cohen Is One Of My Heroes.

This Isn't Like Naming Your Dog Spot.

I'll Look Through 'us Weekly' And I'll See A Picture Of Brad Pitt And Jennifer Anniston. And I'm Like, 'wow, They Just... They Look So Good. Even If They're Like Just Wearing Jeans And A T-shirt, They Still Look Great.'

I Like To Quote Homer Simpson: 'i'm Like A Chocoholic Except For Alcohol.' I Come From A Long Line Of Alcoholics. It's Funny Because When I First Started Making Records, I Was At The Tail End Of A Period Of Sobriety, So I Somehow Got This Reputation As Captain Sober.

I Have Actually Found Myself Buying Up More And More Old Analogue Gear. I Have This Strange Obsession With Old Drum Machines.

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.

There Is A Dysfunctional Strangeness To Los Angeles That Doesn't Exist In Any Other Western City. The Roads Are Crumbling, No-one Knows What They're Doing, The City Government Barely Works.

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.

The Truth Is That Genetics Has Robbed Me Of Hair. But It's Not Interesting To Blame Genetics.

People Assume That Somehow Fame And Wealth Will Keep Mortality At Bay.

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.

As Long As The World Continues To Be Strange And Interesting, I Still Want To Take Pictures Of It.

I Saw People Around Me Who Were Falling Deeper And Deeper Into Alcoholism And Substance Abuse. It's Seductive Because Alcohol Is Amazing And Drugs Are Amazing, They Work So Well.

I Don't Think I'm A Particularly Good Writer, And I'm Not Terribly Insightful.

My Secret Is Being Not Terrible At A Lot Of Things.

One Of The Main Reasons I'm Vegan Is Because I'm Ethically Lazy. My Friends Who Eat Meat Or Who Eat Eggs Have To Sometimes Wrestle With The Ethical Consequences Of Their Actions. By Being Vegan, I Take The Easy Way Out.

If A Musician Is Making A Mediocre, Self-indulgent Body Of Work, They Have To Know That, For The Most Part, People Aren't Going To Be Interested.

I Can Spend Years Studying And Being In Therapy And Having A Very Analytic Spiritual Meditation Practice, But Without The Emotional Component, Without The Softening That Comes With Love And Vulnerability, Everything Else I Do Is Really Just Surface.

Meditation Practice

The Moment That You Impose Your Will On Another Person Or Animal, That's When We Are Allowed To Say You Have Committed An Ethical Breach.

Can't Do Any Work With A Rock Star; You Have To Go Through Their Lawyers And Their Agents And Their Managers And You Have To Book Them Hotel Rooms. When You Work With Your Friends, You Just Call Them Up And They Come Over And You Record And Then You Go Out To See A Movie.

I Think The Most Exciting Thing Is Access To Information. People's Ability To Document Things And Expose Things That May Have Not Otherwise Been Documented And Exposed. All The Information You Want Is Available Instantly, Which Is Overwhelming, But I Think Can Have A Positive Change On The Political Process And Accountability For Leaders And Corporations.

The Moment Somebody Becomes Famous, 15 Years Gets Knocked Off Their Life. They're Gonna Get Divorced A Few Times, They're Gonna Be Addicted To Things, They're Gonna Be In Therapy.

Many Of My Friends Back In New York And Elsewhere Have A Glib Or Dismissive Attitude Toward Los Angeles. It's A Place Of Strip Malls And Traffic And Not Much Else, In Their Opinion.

All Human Belief Systems Are Inherently Flawed.

Success Usually Breeds A Degree Of Hubris.

What I Love About Making Albums In The 21st Century Is That So Few People Buy Albums! I Can Make An Album Without Any Commercial Concerns Whatsoever.

We Hope That As A Species We're Capable Of Dealing With Environmental Catastrophe Before It Actually Does Collectively Kill Most Of Us.

I'm Envious Of People Who Can Sleep As Long As They Want. I Have The Circadian Rhythm Of A Farmer.

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

I Found It Incredibly Disheartening That In The Late '90s, Suddenly Pop Culture Became Even More Misogynistic And More Homophobic, And So I Criticized Eminem For Having Lyrics That Were Egregiously Homophobic And Egregiously Misogynistic.

So In 1987 I Gave Up All Animal Products And Became A Vegan. Simply So That I Could Eat And Live In Accordance With My Beliefs That Animals Have Their Own Lives, That They're Entitled To Their Own Lives And That Contributing To Animal Suffering Is Something That I Don't Want To Be A Part Of.

I'm Not Catholic But The Virgin Mary Fascinates Me Because She's Like A Folk Hero.

I'd Rather Be Around Broken People Who Have A Degree Of Humility, And Just Get On With Their Work.

I Think That, For A Lot Of Us, The Closer We Get To Showing People Who We Really Are, That's Where We Feel The Most Uncomfortable, The Most Vulnerable. But It's Also Where The Healthiest Growth Comes From. Like When I Can Really Open Myself Up To Someone And Show Someone Who I Really Am, It's Amazing When It Happens.

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

What Sounds Good On The Radio Is Really Loud Kick Drums And Loud Snare Drums, When Everything's Bombastic And In Your Face. It's The Equivalent Of A Houseguest Who Screams All The Time.

You Know, If You Love Something, You Should Love It Regardless Of Whether It Costs Five Dollars Or 500 Or 5,000 Dollars. Unfortunately, That's Not The Way Our Culture Works, And We Do Collectively Buy Into This Idea That Things That Are More Expensive Probably Have More Value.

Whenever I've Had Success, I Never Learn From It. Success Usually Breeds A Degree Of Hubris. When You Fail, That's When You Learn.

When You Say 'failure,' That Seems Really Dramatic, But A Lot Of Failure Is Just Really Depressing And Mundane. I Remember The First Time I Ever Played A Concert In Italy. I Played A Venue That Held 900 People, And I Think Five People Showed Up. It Wasn't A Big, 'john Carter Of Mars' Type Failure. It Wasn't Dramatic; It Was Just Depressing.

People Love Their Favorite Records. And I Aspire To Make A Record Someone Might Be Able To Love In That Way.

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

Without David Bowie, Popular Music As We Know It Pretty Much Wouldn't Exist.

There's A Fairly Extensive Network Of Musicians On Tour Who Are All Trying To Stay Sober, And We Generally Reach Out To Each Other And Offer Support When And Where We Can.

Factory-farm Lobbyists Are So Powerful And So Well Funded And They Do Everything In Their Power To Hide The Truth About Farming. They Keep The Farms And Slaughterhouses In Places That Most People Never Visit; They Execute Huge Marketing Campaigns In An Effort To Make Animal Production Look Like A Happy, Nice, Benign Institution.

When I Was Very Young, I Played In A Punk-rock Band, But I Also Studied Music Theory And Classical Music.

I Like Singing, But It's Certainly Not My Strong Point.

For Me The Two Biggest Issues Are Climate Change And Animal Welfare/animal Agriculture. And Oddly Enough Animal Agriculture Is Such A Contributor To Climate Change. According To The United Nations, 25% Of Climate Change Comes From Animal Agriculture, So Every Car, Bus, Boat, Truck, Airplane Combined Has Less Co2 And Methane Emissions Than Animal Agriculture.

When Public Figures Think They Can Open A Business Even Though They've Got No Business Experience, It's A Bad Idea.

As People Continue To Do More And Buy More Over The Internet, Continue To Meet People Over The Internet, Connection Speeds Are Going To Get Faster, And The Internet Is Just Going To Become An Even More Integral Part Of People's Lives.

When Britney Shaves Off All Her Hair And Beats Paparazzi With Umbrellas - That's What Celebrities Are Supposed To Do. They're Not Supposed To Be Reasonable, Middle-aged Guys Drinking Organic Tea Talking About Semiotics.

My Job Of Being A Musician In A Recording Studio Has Nothing To Do With Being A Musician Being On Tour Performing.

It's Almost Like A Sign Of Mental Illness To Base Your Self-worth On The Opinions Of Complete Strangers, You Know?

I Look Back And Think Of All The Times I've Had To Let Things Go In The Past, And How Traumatic It Seemed While It Was Happening, But How My Understanding Of It Changed As Time Passed - And Oftentimes Things That Seem Really Difficult And Traumatic In The Short Term Seem A Lot Less Difficult And Traumatic In The Long Term. So I Remind Myself Of That.

I’ve Been Making Electronic Music For Twenty Some Odd Years But, Because I Grew Up Playing In Punk Rock Bands, When I Started Touring, I Thought In Order To Be A Viable Touring Musician I Had To Do It With A Band. I Would Dj Or Tour With A Full Rock Band.

No One Drives In Manhattan - In Fact, Many Of The Folks Who Live In Manhattan Don't Even Have Driving Licenses!

When I Was A Drunk, New York Was The Greatest Place In The World. You Walk Everywhere, Everything Is Open Until Four In The Morning, And People Go To New York Looking For Debauchery.

In The Course Of My Life, I've Made Some Happy Songs But It's The More Sort Of Like Pathos-laden, Emotional, Melancholic Music That Either I Make Or That Other People Make That Really Resonates With Me.

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?

The Young Have To Kill The Old. The Young, If They Want To Achieve Their Own Platform, Have To Diminish The Reputations Of The Ones That Have Gone Before. That's How Life Works.

In A Way I Almost Feel Like The Election Of Donald Trump Has Inspired Democrats And Progressives And Punk Rockers In A Way That Hasn't Been Seen Since Vietnam.

Doing Interviews And Touring Are Two Ways That I Can Try To Bring My Music To People. It Can Be Tiring, But It's Better Than Working At Burger King.

There's An Aesthetic Theme, Which Is Cities At Two O'clock In The Morning. Not Cities Packed With People Going Out To Clubs And Dancing But Desolate, Empty Streets. It's Off-putting But There's A Strange Comfort To It As Well, That Desolate Urban Environment.

A Lot Of My Friends Who Grew Up In Manhattan Have A Strange Phobia About Brooklyn. It's Big And Scary And They Get Lost.

For My Most Of My Career I've Been A Falling-down Drunk. Most Of My Interviews Were Done Hungover, And For A While It Was Great.

I Don't Think There's Anything Wrong With Not Knowing How To Play An Instrument, But The Rise Of The Non-musical Producer Has Done Away With Musicianship And Focused Attention Purely On The Song's Hook.

I Just Have To Remind Myself That My Daily Quotidie In Life Has Almost Nothing To Do With Any Aspect Of My Professional Life As A Public Figure.

Professional Life

I Stopped Drinking And Realised New York Still Has A Lot Of Charm, But It Has Become So Bourgeois And Affluent - And I Can't Really Complain Because I'm Sort Of Bourgeois And Affluent Myself, But I Like Living In A Place Where Artists And Musicians And Writers Can Actually Pay The Rent.

Being A Vegan Is Pretty Easy These Days, As Almost Every Town And City Has Health Food Stores And Vegetarian-friendly Restaurants.

My Biggest Concern Is Trying To Keep Crazy Republicans Out Of Office.

If Nirvana Had Remained A Small, Underground Punk Rock Band, Kurt Cobain Would Still Be Alive. And He'd Probably Be Living In Seattle, Getting Kind Of Fat And Balding, Be Relatively Happy And Producing Records For Other People.

If We Base Our Belief Systems On The Humble Assumption That The Complexities Of The World Are Ontologically Beyond Our Understanding, Then Maybe Our Belief Systems Will Make More Sense And End Up Causing Less Suffering.

I've Done The Performing Monkey Stuff And Massive Breakdowns, It's Just They Weren't Documented.

I Still Never Get Recognized. Small, Bald White Guys Like Myself - We All Kind Of Look The Same.

I Find Myself For Whatever Reason Unable To Live In The Apartment I Renovate And Have To Sell.

It's Heartbreaking That So Many Hundreds Of Millions Of People Around The World Are Desperate For The Right To Vote, But Here In America People Stay Home On Election Day.

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.

Britney [spears]'s Actually Kind Of Like A Broken-down Shell Of A Human Being, That's What Makes Her So Endearing And Compelling.

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

Most Artists, You Know, You Spend Their Entire Lives Learning How To Play Music And Write Songs, And They Don't Really Know How The Music Business Works.

I Love Going On Tour And Playing Music For People.

Old People Go To The Polls Because They Can't Get Erections, Young People Stay Home, Do Drugs And Have Sex.

If You Look At The History Of Demagoguery And Fascism, It Always Happens When There Are Two Things. It Requires A Gentle Populace To Allow It To Happen, Whether Through Laziness, Ignorance Or Ineptitude, But It Also Requires A Very Angry, Dissatisfied Section Of The Populace Who Want Egregiously Simple Answers To Very Complicated Problems.

If The Entire World Decided To Become Vegan Tomorrow, A Whole Host Of The World's Problems Would Disappear Overnight. Climate Change Would Decrease By 25 Percent, Deforestation Would Cease, Rainforests Would Be Preserved, Our Water- And Air-quality Would Increase, Life-expectancy Rates Would Increase, And Our Rates Of Cancer Would Plummet, So Certainly, With That One Action Of Becoming Vegan You Are Quite Effectively Making The World A Better Place.

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.

There Are Some Public Figures Who Are Very Private And Almost Hide Behind Their Work. I Try To Be As Open As Possible.

When I Was Growing Up I Was An Atheist, Then An Agnostic, And Then I Had A Good Eight Or Ten Years Of Being Quite A Serious Christian.

The World Is Experiencing Great Change, But You've Got Loads Of People Terrified Of This Change And The Donald Trumps, The Boris Johnsons Making Utterly Simplistic, Reductionist Policy Proposals That Are Unrealistic But Then People Buy It Up.

I Love The Fact That No One's Ever Bought My Record Because They Were Enamoured Of The Way I Look. Maybe One Person. There Must Be Someone Out There With Compromised Taste.

If You And I Become Vegans, The Global Consequences Aren't Going To Be That Much. But If We Can Get A Few Hundred Million People To Become A Little More Aware And Cut Back On Their Animal Consumption, The Consequences Will Be Great.

Music Can Always Serve A Role In People's Lives When It's Emotional And Warm And Inviting And Beautiful.

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