Billy Corgan

“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.”

“The desire to hit a big home run is dominating the music business.”

“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.”

“I'm sort of like a lame, single guy in a red sports car.”

“One thing I've learned to appreciate as I've gotten a little older is direct forms of communication.”

“There are people out there who are older who are cool. I want that.”

“I was trying to be this person who is cool, eternally rocking.”

“I grew up in the suburbs and basically associate the suburbs with cultural death.”

“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.”

“I was fantasising about my own death, I started thinking what my funeral would be like and what music would be played, I was at that level of insanity.”

“I'm from a lower middle class background all my family were immigrants.”

“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.”

“If I have resistance to something, it means there's something wrong. The resistance to me is a sign of fear.”

“I do not trust those who make the vaccines, or the apparatus behind it all to push it on us through fear.”

“A good artist is willing to die many times over. What's funny is, I've died so many times.”

“The funny thing about me that most people never really understand is that, at heart, I'm really a jock.”

“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.”

“You've got to be ready to be in a great relationship.”

“I like my home and I like the nature.”

“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 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.”

“In a weird kind of way, music has afforded me an idealism and perfectionism that I could never attain as me.”

“When you actually like each other, it translates to the music.”

“You have to be willing to deal with the ups and downs of the music, the ups and downs of the audience.”