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It Seems To Me That References To Bands Like Black Sabbath And Led Zeppelin Meant More To Me A Year Ago And All Those Old Things Are Totally Losing Importance.

-Billy Corgan

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It Seems To Me

Billy Corgan

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It Seems To Me That References To Bands Like Black Sabbath And Led Zeppelin Meant More To Me A Year Ago And All Those Old Things Are Totally Losing Importance.

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I Mean There's Certainly A Lot Of Progressive Rock And Metal That Exists At The Underground Level, Which Has Its Own Vitality, As It Should. But It Seems To Have Lost Its Ability To Really Charge Up The Hill.

Smashing Pumpkins Has Never Been A Band About Hit Songs.

That Was A Terrible Super Bowl, I Have To Say. I Mean You Got The Big Peyton Manning Walk Off Into The Sunset Win, But What A Shnoozo.

That's At The Root Of The Human Interaction: Fair Trade.

I Know How Stupid People Can Be. I've Played In Front Of 5,000 People That Bought A Ticket To My Concert, And Some Guy Who's Bought A Ticket Decides He's Going To Throw A Bottle At My Head. That's A Simple Act Of Stupidity. That's Not Even Defiance.

Wrestling Is One Of The Last Truly Rebellious American Things Left.

I'm Like The Fugitive, Running From The One-armed Indie-rock Community!

There's A Difference Between Being A Poseur And Being Someone Who's So Emotionally Challenged They're Kind Of Just Doing Their Best To Show You What They've Got.

We're The Worst Band In America... That Makes Us The Best.

Ultimately, Running A Band Is About The Relationships You Have With People.

In 1992, With The Weight Of A Perceived World On Our Shoulders, We Disappeared Into A Parking Garage To Write The Songs That Would Change The Course Of Our Lives Forever. 'siamese Dream' Represents All Of Our Dreams Coming True, While The Dreams Of A Happy Band Fell Apart.

Great Music Completely Obliterates Any Conceptions Of Genre.

In The Beginning, Though, I Have To Admit That I Did Have A Chip On My Shoulder. I Did Want To Prove Everyone Wrong. But After I Went Through The Process And Came Out The Other Side, It Wasn't About Anyone Else.

I Feel Completely Free To Do Whatever I Want And How I Want To Do It. I Feel Unburdened By My Past.

I Look At Other Members Of My Generation Who Have Basically Done One Thing, And One Thing Well, And Have Been Handsomely Rewarded For It.

I Have A Hard Time Thinking Of Men Trying To Sing My Songs, Because I Think My Perspective Is Definitely Feminine.

Where Is This Great Love For Rock And Roll That Existed For 50 Or 60 Years?

Intoxicated With The Madness I'm In Love With My Sadness Bullshit Beggars, Enchanted Kingdom Fashion Victims Through Their Charcoaled Teeth

About Six Months Ago, I Listened To Siamese Dream. That Was The First Time I'd Ever Really Heard My Own Album, Because I Had Separated From The Experience Of Making The Record. And It Really Moved Me. It Made Me Cry, It's So Beautiful.

In Our Lives In A Lot Of Ways It's All About Fake. You've Got People Wanting Things For Fake Reasons.

Now The Expectation Is That, Once The Public Decides That The Artist Is Gentrified, The Public Demands That The Artist Stop Growing. And [the Public] Actually Puts All Their Energy Into Reasserting Or Re-establishing What The Artist Has Long Ago Left Behind. Because That's What They Want. The Source Of Creativity, The Gift That's Been Given, Be Damned.

Calm, Open Debate, And Logical Thought Drive Strength To Its Maximum Effectiveness.

I'm By Nature Kind Of A Glum Person, But I'm Not A Sad Pathetic

I Like My Home And I Like The Nature.

I Don't Have To Play By These Rules Or Do These Things... I Can Actually Have My Own Kind Of Version.

More Than Any Audience In The World, Americans Will Cross Their Arms, Stare At You And Say, 'ok, Whaddya Got?' - No Matter How Many Times You've Proven It To Them.

The Desire To Hit A Big Home Run Is Dominating The Music Business.

I Often Have Deer On My Property And There's A Fox And Owls. You're Not Going To See That In The City.

I Lay A Lot Of Blame At The Feet Of Dusty Baker For Not Being More Strict About Fundamentals, Which I Think Would Give The Team A Stronger Day-to-day Identity.

I Have A Musical Ancestry As Much As I Have A Family Ancestry. Honoring Those Ancestors Gives You Access To A Greater Source Of Appreciation And Information Than You Would Have If You Were Just Going On Your Own Ego System.

You've Got To Be Ready To Be In A Great Relationship.

Great Relationship

We Have A Problem With Any Labels That People Try To Hang On Us, Because All It Does Is Drag You Down.

I'm Viewed As This Weird, Crippled Character. But You Got To Take Your Lumps.

I Grew Up In The Suburbs And Basically Associate The Suburbs With Cultural Death.

As A 28 Year Old Who's Lived Long Enough To Know The Difference, I Know Now That The Feelings I Felt An 16 Were Not Necessarily Correct. But However Overly Dramatic, The Desperation And Hopelessness I Felt At 16 Was My Reality.

Well, I'm Known As A Guitar-rock Guy, You Know? You're Not Supposed To Play With Synthesizers. This Is Not In The Rulebook.

In My Case I Don't Mind Playing A Character That Irritates People Or Makes People Question My Sanity.

I Don't Know If God Would Agree With Me, But Believing In God Is Kind Of Unimportant When Compared To Believing In Yourself. Because If You Go With The Idea That God Gave You A Mind And An Ability To Judge Things, Then He Would Want You To Believe In Yourself And Not Worry About Believing In Him. By Believing In Yourself You Will Come To The Conclusion That Will Point To Something.

People Always Called The Cure Gloomy, But Listening To The Cure Made Me Happy. There Was Something About The Gloominess That Gave Me Comfort, And I Think We're The Same Way.

We Love Cats More Than We Love Women [with Marilyn Manson].

We Weren't Like Mates Who Decided To Form A Band. The Other Three Met Me Because They Were Interested In Being In The Band That I Was Starting.

Personally, I Think Jesus Would Like Better Bands.

Rock And Roll Is Still Asking People Like Me To Live Up To The Old Guard's Concept Of What Success Is But It Doesn't Mean Anything.

Every Year That Goes By, I Lose That Much More Motivation To Play Rock.

I Don't Think I'm Before My Time, I Just Don't Think I'm In My Time.

As Far As A Theoretical Point Of View For My Generation, I'm Probably The Most Successful Theoretician. I Mean, Double Albums And Concepts And Dresses And Major Disasters And Wonderful Successes And Yet You Don't See The Critical Review Of My Work. Why? Because It's All Focused On The Persona. Billy Corgan. But I Get To Sort Of Jump In And Be Billy Corgan. But Then I Get To Sort Of Jump Back Out And Be Like, Sensitive Man In The Corner.

You Will Never See The Four Original Pumpkins On Stage Ever Again, Unless It's A Hall Of Fame Thing. But You Would Never See A Tour. There's So Much Damage, There's No Way.

All I Can Go On Is My Own Value System.

I Mean My Point As An Artist Is I'm On My Own Little Weird Journey Across The Sky Here And Whether Or Not Anybody's Listening, Or Listening To The Degree I Would Like Them To, At The End Of The Day Has To Be An Inconsequential Thing Because I Can't Chase This Culture.

I Was Trying To Be This Person Who Is Cool, Eternally Rocking.

I'm Not Going To Die Glamorously. I'll Probably Be Eating A Twinkie, Take A Bite, And Fall Over.

I Dont Think We're The Type Of Band People Look At And Say, 'i Want To Grow Up To Be Just Like That'. We're Like A Train Wreck.

I'm Very Disappointed In My Country Right Now, Because I Think We've Kind Of Lost Our Moral Compass.

I'm Sort Of Like A Lame, Single Guy In A Red Sports Car.

Sometimes People Just Like Being Around Each Other, And Good Things Come Out Of That.

You Give Me A @#$%& Kazoo And I'll Write You A Good Song.

There's A Lot Of Ufo Sightings In New Orleans, Which Isn't Really Too Surprising. There's A Lotta Crazy People There. The People There Lack The Intelligence To Know What They Are Seeing, So That's Why The Ufo's Go There.

I Think I Kind Of Approached Music With This Sort Of, Like, Weird Thing Where I Kinda Set Myself Up Where I Could Kinda Be Myself But Not Really. I Kinda Had A Backdoor Out. So If You Criticized Me, I Kinda Had My Defenses Working. And The Problem Is That Some People Seize On That As Inauthenticity, Which Is Understandable. So That's Painful Because It's Not That You're Being Inauthentic...there's A Difference Between Being A Poseur And Being Someone Who's So Emotionally Challenged They're Kind Of Just Doing Their Best To Show You What They've Got.

Most Great Records Really Start With The Drums.

Everybody I'm Working With Now Is A Friend. And I Would Be Very, Very Remiss To Work With Anybody In The Future Who Has Not Shown Me Who They Really Are.

The Killer In Me Is The Killer In You.

Around The Mid-'90s Every Hair Guy Who Would Have Been In A Hair-metal Band Got His Tattoos And Suddenly Decided He Was Alternative. It Just Became Like A Thing.

My Step-mom Would Tell Me That She Would Get Complaints From Adults That I Stared Too Much At Them.

My Mother And I Parting Company At Four Years Old Is A Recurring Theme; Although It's Not Symbolically Necessarily Present, It's Present In All My Relationships.

It Makes Me Crazy To Think That Somebody Might Attack My City Or Any Other City.

I Think Humankind Is Going To Have To Evolve Into Systems That Are More Transparent. Then People Will Be Able To Make More Integral Choices About The Food They Eat.

I Was Part Of A Generation That Changed The World - And It Was Taken Over By Poseurs.

James, That's A Bad Situation. I'm Not Saying It's Not Repairable, But It's Pretty Far. When You Go From Being In One Of The Best Bands In The World To Some Cover Band... As Far As I'm Concerned, He Was Playing Down At The Pub.

I Never Wanted To Leave The Smashing Pumpkins. That Was Never The Plan.

I Think Rock & Roll Has Prepared Me For A Lot Of Flexibility.

Being In A Rock Band Is Just An Excuse Not To Get A Job

My Pat Line About The Cubs And Payroll Is That The Amount Of Merchandise The Cubs Would Sell Off A World Series Championship Would More Than Cover For A Big Payroll.

I've Thought Many Times, 'i Can't Write This,' But On My Own Little Planet I Found The Courage To Write It Because It Was True. I Put Aside Fear Of Father Being Angry With Me. It's Hard Though; The World Pales In Comparison With The Stature Of A Parent. In Some Small-consolation Way, My Parents Feel I'm Helping People By Giving Them Something To Identify With. They Feel Proud In A Sort Of Reverse Way. My Mom's Proud Of The Fact That Lots Of Kids Look Up To Me.

The Music Is All We Care About -- So If That's Bad, Then We're Bad.

When You Move Artistically, The Natural Inclination Is To Denounce Everything That's Gone Before.

I Grew Up In A House Of No Love Or Emotion - It Kind Of Sticks With You.

Been There, Done That, Seen It, Heard It, Pissed On It.

Been There Done That

You Have To Be Willing To Deal With The Ups And Downs Of The Music, The Ups And Downs Of The Audience.

I Think A Spiritual Journey Is Not So Much A Journey Of Discovery. It's A Journey Of Recovery. It's A Journey Of Uncovering Your Own Inner Nature. It's Already There.

Billy [corgan] And I Used To Spend Quite A Lot Of Time Together In Los Angeles, When I First Moved There.

I Want To Make Great Songs.

I'm Not Interested In Pop Art.

Say You Write A Song About A Chandelier, And The Chandelier Gives Off Light. And The Light Is The Color Red And Red Reminds You Of The Color Your Not Supposed To Wear Around A Bull. So You Name The Song 'cow.'

I Put Up With The Music Business Because I Understand That I'm In The Tradition, I'm In A Tradition That's Of Far Greater Importance Than The Business I Seem To Be In. Everywhere I Go In The World, People Ask Me About The Business That I Seem To Be In, But I'm Not Really In That Business.

What Most People Do Is Try To Find A Comfortable Persona That They're In Alignment With And The Public Likes And Appreciates Them For.

You Could Have A Zillion Facebook Followers. Those People Don't Buy Records. It's About A Hundred To One...record Companies, They Don't Have Any Money So They See Social Media As The Free Marketing...so,...'billy, Light Yourself On Fire And Stand Upside Down, And That'll Market The Record'. I've Spent A Lot Of Time Thinking About This. I Don't Think People By Records Because Of Anything That Happens On Facebook. They Buy Records Cause They're Friends Say 'i Bought This Record And I Love It'.

There's A Lot Of Days Where You Feel Forgotten.

I Mean, I'm Certainly Not A 'teaophyte,' Or Whatever The Word Would Be.

My View Of The World Is Always Tempered By The Fact That There Are People Who Are Less Fortunate Than I Am.

There Is Something Mighty Suspicious About Declaring An Emergency For Something That Has Yet To Show Itself To Be A Grand Pandemic.

We Can Look You In The Eye And Talk To You About Life, Heart, Love Rock'n'roll, Whatever, But We Do Not Have The Moral Authority To Tell People How To Vote Or What To Do With Their Bodies. We Are Just A Rock Band.

I've Always Been Spiritual But I've Never Had A Proper Context, And It Took Me Awhile To Find The Proper Context. It's Hard To Realize You Can Have Any Kind Of Relationship With God You Want...and So I Now Have A Punk Rock Relationship With God.

Everybody Can Close Their Eyes, Picture A Dream House Or A Perfect Place [where] They'd Like To Have A Picnic. But Actually Creating It - How Do You Create Something From Nothing? Anyone Who's Creative Understands That That's The Magic, That's The Alchemy.

It's About The Girlfriend Who Left Me Last Year. I Tried To Put All My Anger In Those Words, Even Though I'm Just As Much To Blame For The Break-up. 'soma' Is Based On The Idea That A Love Relationship Is Almost The Same As Opium: It Slowly Puts You To Sleep, It Soothes You, And Gives You The Illusion Of Sureness And Security. Very Deceivable.

It Was Shocking To See Nirvana Play, Because It Was Like, "here's This Little Guy With A Monster-guitar Sound." And It Was Heavier Than Black Sabbath. That Was Shocking.

Rock In The Mainstream Culture Has Lost A Lot Of Its Mojo.

Mainstream Culture

Music Is 99% Of My Life. But I Know I Need A Break. Besides, If You Give People Too Much, They Start To Not Want It. We Need To Restrain Ourselves.

Your Basic Person Wants To Talk About Material Culture, Internet Culture. I Think About God, Cats, Nature.

I'm From A Lower Middle Class Background; All My Family Were Immigrants.

I Don't Think '90s Music Was As Significant As '60s Music In Terms Of Changing The World, But It Was Significant, And I Think It Was Similarly Disillusioning When You Realize The Mainstream Just Views It As Like A Curiosity.

To Be Able To Put Your Arms Around 24 Years Of Music, It's Really Fun.

In The Music Business I Am Surrounded By People Who Don't View Music As A Sacred Voice. They View Music As Something That They Can Use And Exploit, Often Times Lazily. They Have No Sense Of The Tradition, They Have No Sense Of Honor About Those Who Came Before And Charted The Path.

I Rummage Around In Artistic Things From The Past. If You Don't Understand The Context, They Wouldn't Make Any Sense. I Rummage Around In Conceptual Ideas Of The Future, But If You Don't Know The Source Of The Thinking, [it] Wouldn't Make Any Sense.

There Are People Out There Who Are Older Who Are Cool. I Want That.

My Version, Of Course, Is Not This Flag-waving, Let's All Get On The Jesus Train And Ride Out Of Hell. I'm Not That Kind Of Guy. It's An Embrace That Life Is Good, Worth Living And Yeah, It's Not Easy, But There Are More Pluses Than Minuses.

These Days You're Not Just Competing With The Tedium, You're Competing With The Cellphone.

Music Is Supposed To Be Interwoven Into The Fabric Of Society; It Is Not Supposed To Be A Plaything That Is There To Serve The Population's Titillation Of The Moment.

I Did 13-something Years Of Talking To Wrestlers And Promoters About Why They Did Certain Things And Why They Booked Matches A Certain Way And What They Were Thinking And Whether They Were Satisfied With The Draw. And I Got A Lot Of Insight In The Business.

If I Had Spent Fourteen Months In A Small Room With Jesus, I'd Want To Fist Fight With Him.

We're Both Cat Lovers [with Marilyn Manson].

Gish Was The Best Representation Of Where We Were At The Time.

We Are The Most Beloved And Hated Band In The World.

Well, We Have Brought Certain Things Upon Ourselves. I've Certainly Brought Things Upon Us With My Mouth.

The Title Of A Song Is Like The Wrapping On A Present.

Like Any Good Tree That One Would Hope To Grow, We Must Set Our Roots Deep Into The Ground So That What Is Real Will Prosper In The Light Of Love.

My Father Was A Guitar Player, And I Was Raised With A Super High Standard Of What Good Guitar Playing Was.

I've Become A Guy Who's Like A Complaining, Whining Neurotic.

When You Present People With Things From The Heart And From The Soul, They Make Better Choices: They Make Better Choices About Their Bodies, They Make Better Choices About Their Partners, They Make Better Choices About The Environment.

Not Let The Child Run The Circus, Just Have That Child Be The Source Of The Creative Voice.

Rock & Roll Is Not About What You Play, It's About How You Play It.

The Funny Thing About Me That Most People Never Really Understand Is That, At Heart, I'm Really A Jock.

I Think God Is The Most Unexplored Territory In Rock And Roll Music.

I Went To See A Shaman. He Put His Hands On Me, And I Cried Like A Baby For An Hour.

If Practice Makes Perfect, And No One's Perfect, Then Why Practice?

Rhetorical Question

The Music Business - And I Guess You Could Say Any Artistic Endeavor - Usually Rewards Those Who Are On The Leading Edge Of Where Everything Is Going, But You Can't Be Too Far.

I Reached A Point In My Life Where I Felt Like I Was Living Through Some Old Character.

There's Nothing More Satisfying Than Going To A Market And Meeting The Person Who Picked The Strawberries, Or It's Their Farm That The Strawberries Came From, And Giving Them A Fair Value In Exchange For What They're Giving You.

Compliments And Criticism Are All Ultimately Based On Some Form Of Projection.

If You Don't Have Some Sort Of Belief System By Which To Center Your Life, It's Hard Sometimes To Understand Why You Would Put Up With Your Family.

I'm Passionate About Creating New Systems That Are More Holistic To Humankind. What Do I Mean By That? I Mean, Create New Systems Of Business So That People With Ethics Both Exploit Their Goods And Their Gifts While Not Exploiting The Earth, Exploiting One Another.

Don't Judge Yourself By Someone Else's Standards. You Will Always Lose

I Think When I Listen To Old Records, It Puts Me Back In The Atmosphere Of What It Felt Like To Make The Record And Who Was There And What The Room Looked Like. It's More A Sensory Memory.

Once A Pumpkin, Always A Pumpkin.

I Think It Would Be Very Interesting To See That Many People Would Probably Be Okay With Paying More For Services And Goods That They Felt Were More Holistically [generated]. Which Means The Death Of The Old System Which Rewarded People For Taking Advantage Of One Another.

I Usually Wake Up Far After Breakfast. That's As Much As You're Going To Find Out About My Dietary Requirements Other Than Marijuana And Vodka.

I Feel Like I'm Always Fighting Not To Repeat Myself.

Always Fighting

Jesus Teaches Us To Forgive And I've Got To Trust Him On That One.

Live Simply; Make Compassionate Choices When It Comes To Food.

I Was Raised A Christian, But I Wouldn't Call Myself A Christian Now. I Think When I Was Younger It Was Easier To Focus On The Negative, Nihilist Vision... This Is Sort Of Picking Up On The Other Half Of The Body, Which Is God And White Light.

That's The Age That People Are Exploited, Exploitable, And They're Easily Manipulated. The Problem With Me Is, You Can't Manipulate Me Anymore. I've Seen It, I Know It, I've Been There. And That's Partially Why, Particularly In America, You See Issues With Artists As They Get Older. And They Like To Keep It A Young Man's Game. Because That's How They Can Fudge Around With The Rules.

I Think Long And Hard About What It Is I'm Actually Trying To Do, And Then I Kind Of Have To Narrow My Focus Into That. If I Don't, I'm Too All Over The Place.

I'd Reached A Point Where There Was A Direct Conflict Between What I Was Trying To Be And Who I Really Was.

Everybody Likes To Run Around On Their Phones, Including Me, But We Don't Always Want To Hear Who's Sweating Somewhere In Some Non-air-conditioned Factory To Create Those Things So That They Can Keep The Prices Down.

This Is Not A Reaction Against A Negative World. It's A Response To A Negative World.

There's Nothing Wrong With Technology. It's When Technology Is The Story And Not The Artist, That's The Problem.

Radiohead And Our Lady Peace Are Doing The Seven Layers Of Guitar, And I Kind Of Jumped On That Before Anyone Else Did.

People Try To Make A Big Deal, Like I Don't Want To Play My Old Songs. That's Not It. I Don't Want To Play My Old Songs If That's My Only Option. That's A Different Thing.

The Weird Nihilism That Permeates Mellon Collie Is Extremely Relevant To What's Going On Right Now. So Many Kids Are Intelligent And Articulate, But They Don't Know What To Do With Themselves.

I Walked Away From Going To Church When I Was 8. I Didn't Set Foot In Another Church Until I Was 28.

Going To Church

I Do Not Think Wrestling Is Going To Save The World.

Despite All My Rage I Am Still Just A Rat In The Cage.

I'll Come In With A String Of Riffs And Direct The Musical Ideas. But You Still Need A Band And Their Input To Make The Ideas Come Alive. You Can't Underestimate Band Chemistry.

Actually, I Was Having Dinner With Michael [stipe, Of R.e.m.] When Our Second Album Went Platinum, Which Up Until That Point Was The Highest Success We'd Ever Had. And He Turned To Me During Dinner And Said, 'welcome To The Deep Waters, Kid.' I'll Never Forget That.

I've Had A Lot Of Things Rendered As Not Being Effective Or As Some Indication Of My Lack Of Sanity, Only To Be Praised Ten, Fifteen, Twenty Years Later For What I Did Once In This Overt Consciousness.

It's Wonderful To Read Interviews By Old Blues Guys - They Talk About All Their Influences, They Talk About Who Taught Them How To Play, And Who They Saw, And How They Were Determined To Play That Way.

You Can Only Be This High-powered Mojo Rock Band For So Long, Then You Just Can't Look People In The Eye. So, We've Projected Our Own Demise.

Destruction Is A True Sign Of Devotion. As I Always Tell My Girlfriend When She Threatens To Kill Me. 'you Should Kill Me And It Would Tell Me That You Love Me.

Beware Of Those Angels With Their Wings Glued On.

The Mythology In Rock N' Roll Is That I'm A Bit Of A Loose Cannon. Yet I've Produced More Music Than Anybody In My Generation. So How Much Of A Loose Cannon Am I? But The General Public Believes That I'm A Loose Cannon, So Let Them Believe It. I'm Not Going To Correct Them.

The Things I'm Guided To Do Are Really Strange To Me.

I Believe That If The Tribune Company Ever Tries To Close Down Wrigley Field That You Will Have A Protest From Every Corner Of The Globe.

I'm Definitely Responsible For Coming In With Some Basic Chord Changes, Or Ideas. Everybody In The Band Looks To Me To Come Up With The Basic Seed, So It's Not Very Productive To Come In With Nothing.

It's Important For People To Talk And Get Beyond The Wall Of Facebook And Social Media.

As A Healthy Person, My Breakfasts Are Very Bland And Boring. Think Kind Of A White Pasty Gruel. Or There Can Be An Occasional Banana Over The Top.

My Earliest Memory Is Of Feeling Different. My Parents Told Me That I Wasn't Like Other Children.

It's What The Mainstream Does - They Absorb Things And They Blunt The Power Of It. And So The Next Generation And The Next Generation Has To Become More Shocking And More Provocative In Order To Get Any Rise Out Of Anybody.

I Really Think It's A White, Bourgeois Idea To Pretend That You Don't Have Influences. It Seems To Be The Obsession Strictly Of White People In College.

What Has Gone On In My Childhood, And The Personal Problems That We've Had In The Band, Have Given A Lot Of People Hope. (it Shows) If You Keep Your Nose Pointed Straight You Can Actually Get Somewhere -- To A Happy Place.

For A 6-foot-3 Guy With No Hair And A Whiny Voice, I've Done All Right.

I've Seen Foreigners Really Shift On Their View Of America, And That's Hard For Me To Take.

There's Something Going On Right Now In America, Where The American Spirit Or Character Is Reasserting Itself Around Liberty. I Think It's An Important Time, And I'm Trying To Document That As An Artist. If I Just Filter What I Read Through The Media, If I Just Go Through What I Read Through The Media, I'm Not Really In Touch With The World I Grew Up In. I Know There's A Gap There, I Talk To My Relatives, I Talk To People I Meet Traveling Around, And Their Mind Is On Something Completely Different.

It Seems To Me That References To Bands Like Black Sabbath And Led Zeppelin Meant More To Me A Year Ago And All Those Old Things Are Totally Losing Importance.

If You're Really Going To Uncover Something As An Artist, You're Going To Come Into Access With Parts Of Your Personality And Your Psyche That Are Really Uncomfortable To Face: Your Own Ambition, Your Own Greed, Your Own Avarice, Your Own Jealousies, And Anything That Would Get In The Way Of The Purity Of Your Own Artistic Voice.

The Ideology Of The Smashing Pumpkins Was Ultimately More Valuable Than The Music Of The Smashing Pumpkins. That's What Critics Can't Put Their Finger On.

If The Next Record Is No Better Than Gish, Then We've Failed.

The Closer I Get Back To Being Who I Really Am, The Stronger The Music Gets.

Indie World Won't Have Me, And Mainstream World Treats Me Like An Alien, But Here I Am Still Floating Between These Two Worlds.

I Want To Be Able To Look Back And Think That As Long As I Was Going This, I Did The Best That I Could.

That's The Real Endeavor: To Try To Create That Direct Conduit From The Pure Consciousness Of Your Creative Voice To The Person Who's A Craftsman Who Can Go Into The World And Consistently Deliver New Things Worth Paying Attention To.

I Didn't Find Jesus. He's Been There The Whole Time.

People Act Like Nirvana Invented Grunge; They Just Took It And Personified It.

I'm Prepared To Spend The Rest Of My Life Playing Clubs, If That Means I'm Playing Music That I Believe In.

People Think I Take Some Sort Of Masochistic Pleasure Out Of Putting Out Music That's Gonna Be Unpopular.

I Don't Have A Problem With 'idol' Or 'x Factor,' I Have A Problem With When Those Things Are Not Given The Proper Contextual Hue.

If I Have Resistance To Something, It Means There's Something Wrong. The Resistance To Me Is A Sign Of Fear.

That's The Great Thing About Rock N' Roll: The Myth Is Ultimately More Important Than The Reality. And That's What You Learn - You Just Learn To Go With The Mythology.

We've Turned Into A Whining Society.

I Had Such A Big Mouth For So Long That It Doesn't Faze Anybody Anymore.

The Difficulty, If You're In The World - And This Is For Anybody - Is The Eventual Disappointment That Comes With Having To Meet Other Versions Of Reality. Imposed Systems That Ask You To Compromise Or Sacrifice Things Which You Consider Holy Or Sacred.

All Humans Are Part Male And Part Female. The Other Side Must Be Explored To Gain Complete Understanding Ofourselves And The World We Live In. Forme, The Idea Of Having A Feminine Perspective Is A Willingness To Be Vulnerable.

A Good Artist Is Willing To Die Many Times Over. What's Funny Is, I've Died So Many Times.

In My Corgan Brain, I've Decided It's Almost As Simple As 'all You Need Is Love.' Almost.

It's A Simple Formula For Me Now, I Don't Play Any Song I Don't Want To Play.

I've Always Believed That We Could Reach Past Genre -- We Didn't Ride The Grunge Coat-tails; We've Always Been On Our Terms.

If You Don't Fit Into This Kind Of Like Gossipy, Trendy, Web-hit Thingy, You're Relegated To Sort Of Second-class Celebrity Status.

Most Of My Arguments With Musicians Through The Years Have Had More To Do With Their Attitude About Music, Or Their Attitude About Their Own Lives, Or Their Personal Responsibility. Music Has Never Really Been The Big Centerpiece Of The Fight.

I Was Brought Up Roman Catholic. I'm Not Even Baptized.

Life Is Everything And Nothing All At Once.

I'm Attacking The Pomposity That Says This Is More Valuable Than That. I'm Sick Of That.

The Smashing Pumpkins Was Never Meant To Be A Small Band. It Was Going To Either Be A Big Band, Or A No Band.

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