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Like Any Form Of Death, At Some Point You Just Have To Get Up And Say Yeah I'll Take It, Whatever's Gonna Happen Is Gonna Happen And Sorta Chop Your Head Off. It's Easy To Avoid All That...there's Always Another Moment, Another Girl, Another High, Another Drug, There's Always Something To Distract You.

-Billy Corgan

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Like Any Form Of

Billy Corgan

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Like Any Form Of Death, At Some Point You Just Have To Get Up And Say Yeah I'll Take It, Whatever's Gonna Happen Is Gonna Happen And Sorta Chop Your Head Off. It's Easy To Avoid All That...there's Always Another Moment, Another Girl, Another High, Another Drug, There's Always Something To Distract You.

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If You've Sold Over A Million Records, You Are Not Punk Rock, You Are Milking The System For Everything That It's Worth.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I Always Thought Kurt Cobain Was The Perfect Embodiment Of The Great Alternative Guitar Player.

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.

For Someone Who's Had The Level Of Success I've Had, There's Been Very Little Critical Review Of My Work, Which Is Pretty Fascinating.

Critical Spirit

One Thing I've Learned To Appreciate As I've Gotten A Little Older Is Direct Forms Of Communication.

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

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.

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.

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.

I Don't Think People Are Fans Of Me Because I Wrote Hit Songs. I Think They're Fans Because I'm A Lunatic Or A Weirdo. The Hit Songs Came Out Of My Idiosyncratic Personality, Not The Other Way Around.

As A Citizen Of The Great City Of Chicago, I Find It Impossible To Root Against The White Sox. The White Sox Organization Has Been Much More Consistent, In My Lifetime At Least, At Putting A Winning Ballclub On The Field.

All I Can Go On Is My Own Value System.

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 Do Not Think Wrestling Is Going To Save The World.

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.

I Realize I'm A Mirror.

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.

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

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

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

I Work Differently Than Most People.

The Reason I Don't Play Any Of The Old Songs Is Because I Really Honor My Old Band, And I Think That Those Songs Are Best Served Within The Context Of That Band.

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

Instead Of Taking The 'i'm Cool, I Hope You Adore Me' Path (with My Music), I Chose The Path Of How To Connect. I Think That's The Reason A Lot Of People Feel A Deeper Connection With Our Band Than Other Bands, And I Also Feel That's Why People Polarize On Us. If You Don't Get It, It Seems Preposterous; If You Do Get It, It's Really Heavy - It Has A Weight To It.

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

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

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.

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

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

Do I Belong In The Conversation About The Best Artists In The World? My Answer Is Yes, I Do.

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 Created A Paradigm By Which I Could Succeed, And Up Until Recently It Was The Only Way I Could Do It. I Could Not Take The Brunt Of Standing In The Light Of My Own Work. There Was A Faustian Bargain I Could Not Make. I Could Have You Mock Me For Wearing Funny Clothes That I Could Deal With. But I Couldn't Deal With Actually Standing In The Light Of My Own Musical Power. That's The Difference Now. It's Like, Okay, No More Of That, You're Done.

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

You Know Americans Are Obsessed With Life And Death And Rebirth, That's The American Cycle. You Know, Awakening, Tragic, Horrible Death And Then Phoenix Rising From The Ashes. That's The American Story, Again And Again.

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

Mainstream Culture

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.

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.

Smashing Pumpkins Has Never Been A Band About Hit Songs.

I've Been Too Productive For Too Long, And Despite What Anybody Wants To Strip Away From Me, I Am Influential. I Am.

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.

Stay In School. Lie To Your Teachers, But Stay In School.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I'm A Pisces, And Pisces Have This Weird Inability To Be Completely Spontaneous. We're Too Conscious Of Our Actions. I've Always Been Way Too Sensible For My Own Good.

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.

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

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.

I Do Not Trust Those Who Make The Vaccines, Or The Apparatus Behind It All To Push It On Us Thru Fear.

We Were Just A Little Immature In The Past. I Think We Actually Wanted To Create Difficult Situations For Ourselves Just To Be Able To Use That Emotion For Stimulation.

Difficult Situations

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

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

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.

A Missive To All You Metal Bands, The World Is Totally Over The Rock Thing. Rock Is Deader Than It's Ever Been.

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

I Started Thinking That If Post Modernism Is About People Opening Up All Their Skeletons, I'm Going The Other Way. I Don't Want Anyone Knowing Anything About Me Anymore.

When Alternative Music - Which Is Supposed To Be The Standard-bearer Of Where White Rock Is Headed - Becomes Either Too Cute Or Too Manufactured, That's Just Really Not Good.

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.

In My Particular Instance, I Came From A Family That Didn't Have Anything. Everything I Earned In Life I Made. Myself. With Songs That I Wrote.

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

I'm Not Interested In Pop Art.

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

Personally, I Think Jesus Would Like Better Bands.

Why Is It That All Non-conformists Look The Same?

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.

People Always Seemed To Pay Attention To Us. I Have No Idea Why -- There Was Just A Presence Between The Four People Or Something.

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

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

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

Rhetorical Question

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.

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.

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.

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.

I Use Music As Some Kind Of Weird Salvation To Get Away From Life

You Have To Keep Adapting To The Times. If You Kind Of Go With It, It Can Kind Of Fun.

I Was Playing Heavy Metal When I Was 18. I Had To Evolve Out Of That Into An Alternative Consciousness About What It Meant To Change The Way I Played Guitar, And The Kind Of Songs, And The Subject Matter, And Singing About Child Abuse, And All This Stuff. I Had To Come From Somewhere, And I Had To Take Chances To Do That.

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.

In A Weird Kind Of Way, Music Has Afforded Me An Idealism And Perfectionism That I Could Never Attain As Me.

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

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

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.

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.

Most People Are Living Lives Of Sort Of Survival. And Constantly Posing An Existential Crisis, Either Through Fantasy Or Oblivion, Really Has Been Pretty Much Explored In Rock And Roll. At Least In The Western Version Of Rock N' Roll.

Great Music Completely Obliterates Any Conceptions Of Genre.

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

I Never Seemed To Fit In. But It Made Me Try To Strive For Things Ten Times Harder.

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

Saturn Return Is Just The Return Of Your Planets To Their Original Position.

Today Is The Greatest Day I've Ever Known Can't Live For Tomorrow, Tomorrow's Much Too Long.

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.

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.

Fur Is A Contentious Issue. Meat Is A Contentious Issue. Gmos Are A Contentious Issue. I Think This Whole Thing Going On About Whether Or Not Products Should Be Labeled If They Have Gmos In Them - I, As A Consumer, Would Like To Know If I'm Eating Gmo Food. If I Choose To Buy It Then It's My Choice.

What Bothers Me Is When Music Becomes Entertainment. Of Course, Music Is Supposed To Be Entertaining, But Go Back To Any Period Of Time - Music Had A Cultural Significance On Different Levels, Whether It Was Folk Music, It Was The News Of The Village, Or It Had To Do With The Rites Of Passage.

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

To Re-embrace What I Once Loved About Music Has Been A Warming Process For Me, Because It's A Good, Earned Feeling Now.

Twenty-eight To 31 Is The Tough Period. You Have To Be Really Careful Because It's So Cataclysmic, So Life-altering. People Do Really Dramatic Things Like Get Married, Or They'll Get Divorced. Your Chances Of Committing Suicide Go Way Up. It's Basically Psychic Death. You See The Signs Of It Around 27, And You're Still On The Out-end Of It Around 31. Everyone I've Talked To Who's Gone Through That And Come Out The Other Side Walks Out Of It Like, "my Life Is Great".

The Deeper I Get Into My Life As A Musician, I'm Discovering That It Becomes Less And Less About Other People, And More About What I Want To Do. And That's A Good Place To Be.

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

Everything About Life Makes Me Lonely.

There's Been Someone Up Here Screaming 'landslide' For The Whole Show... Normally We Don't Play 'landslide,' But On Occasion We've Been Known To Play It... So Since This Person's Been Screaming It All Show Long... That Just About Kills The Chances Of Me Playing It Tonight, Or Ever Again.

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.

I Met Scott Stapp When The Band Was First Coming Up, Great Guy. I Haven't Seen Him For Years, But A Great Guy.

Thinking About The Future And Thinking About The Past Is Really Only A Way Of Ignoring The Present.

I Don't Have Any Sentimental Notion About How People Are Going To Remember Me.

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.

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

I Don't Wanna Play This Kind Of Cartoon Character Anymore.

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

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.

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

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

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.

The Pumpkins Love Rock-and-roll, We Absolutely Love It, But We Also Think It's A Flatulent, Ego-serving Kiddie Playground. You Can Have Your Cake And Eat It Too.

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

I Think The Days Of Working With Producers In The Conventional Sense Are Over For Me.

Even If You Don't Believe In God, Exploring Fully The Idea Of A God Or Gods Should Pose No Threat To You.

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.

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.

The Point Is To Let The Music Be Itself. If It Doesn't Mean Anything To You, Then It's Bullsh*t.

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.

Most People Don't Know That Wrestling Came Out Of The Circus.

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 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.

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

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

I Didn't Grow Up With My Mother, And So Losing Her For Real Was Like, Some Sort Of Latent Childhood, Some Sort Of Unresolved Issue. When She Left For Real, It Was Sort Of Like, I Was Done.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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'.

If There Was A Simple Ethic For The Band, It Was That We Want To Be Able To Do Whatever We Want To Do.

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

Been There Done That

Heavy Metal Is A Universal Energy -- It's The Sound Of A Volcano. It's Rock, It's Earth Shattering. Somewhere In Our Primal Being We Understand.

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

Well, All Rock And Roll Is Based In Artifice.

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

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

The Killer In Me Is The Killer In You.

I Hate How In Magazine Pictures, They Always Stick Me Somewhere In The Back. It Means They Don't Think I'm The Cute One.

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.

Injuries Are Nothing To Be Ashamed About.

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.

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're Both Cat Lovers [with Marilyn Manson].

I Had Concussions As A Kid Playing Football And Basketball, And Know What It Feels Like And To Have Someone Say 'just Rub Some Dirt On It, And Get Back In There.'

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

We Don't Make Music For People To Take Drugs To, We Make Music For People To Live Their Life.

Time Is Never Time At All. You Can Never Ever Leave Without Leaving A Piece Of Youth. And Our Lives Are Forever Changed. We Will Never Be The Same. The More You Change, The Less You Feel.

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.

We've Turned Into A Whining Society.

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.

Beware Of Those Angels With Their Wings Glued On.

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

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.

Somewhere Between The Intellectual Idea Of Why We're Attracted To Certain Things And The Pragmatic Reality Is Some Form Of Ever-evolving Truth.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

Always Fighting

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

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

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 Get More Out Of Life Just Being Myself, By Just Being A Human Being. Not By Being A Rock Star, Not By Being Whatever. Sometimes I Act Like A Jerk, But I Think People Respect Me For Being Myself. That's The Ultimate Thing About The Smashing Pumpkins.

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

Great Relationship

Being Overly Identified With [a Certain Period Of Time] Becomes A Noose Around Your Neck, And People Don't Want You To Grow Up, They Don't Want You To Change, They Don't Want You To Evolve.

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.

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.

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

I've Rarely Done Anything That's Overtly Self-destructive Without Consciously Knowing What I'm Doing. And Then Of Course, The Astute Journalist Jumps Forward And Says, "why Are You Being Calculated?" Calculated Seems To Assume A Sinister Intent. My Intent Is Always For Artistic Effect.

Shave Your Head, Wear A 'zero' Shirt. Take Away Your Identity. What Do You Have? You Still Have Yourself.

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

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

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

The Great Thing About Rock N' Roll Is, If You Want To Fight - Like, Fight The System, Fight The Man, Fight The Government, Fight The People In Front Of You - It's Don Quixote All Over Again. You're Really Chasing Windmills.

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 Don't Like That The Government Is Going To Manipulate The Information To Try To Convince Me That What I'm Eating Is Not What I'm Really Eating. If People Choose To Eat Cardboard Because It's Ten Cents Cheaper, Then Let Them. That's At The Root Of Freedom. But In The Reverse, I'd Like To Know If What I'm Eating Or Consuming Or Buying Is Somehow Hurting Or Exploiting Someone In Another Part Of The Planet.

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

I Like My Home And I Like The Nature.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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