Billy Corgan
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.Collection: Moving
I do not trust those who make the vaccines, or the apparatus behind it all to push it on us through fear.Collection: Fear
Calm, open debate, and logical thought drive strength to its maximum effectiveness.Collection: Strength
One thing I've learned to appreciate as I've gotten a little older is direct forms of communication.Collection: Communication
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.Collection: Attitude
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.Collection: Relationship
I'm sort of like a lame, single guy in a red sports car.Collection: Sports
When I've tried to reinvent the wheel, I get bashed for not doing the familiar things.
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.
Well, all rock and roll is based in artifice.
Most great records really start with the drums.
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.
Sometimes people just like being around each other, and good things come out of that.
I don't think people buy records because of anything that happens on Facebook. They buy records cause they're friends say 'I bought this record and I love it.'
I realize I'm a mirror.
I just don't want to live in the past. I'm really disappointed by so many people of my generation who - in order to promote their new work, they have to constantly lean on their past. I don't want to be that type of artist... I see a lot of people out here doing really marginal music.
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.
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.
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.
I feel like I'm always fighting not to repeat myself.
I work differently than most people.
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 don't want to be a dead hero.
My step-mom would tell me that she would get complaints from adults that I stared too much at them.
To me, it's the folly of man to make God human.
Personally, I think Jesus would like better bands.
Jesus teaches us to forgive and I've got to trust him on that one.
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've never had coffee. I've always hated the smell. It was always tea. I was a pretty typical kid, though. I grew up drinking Lipton. I didn't know there was other tea to drink.
We've turned into a whining society.
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.
Compliments and criticism are all ultimately based on some form of projection.
I think I'm an artistic radical, and I think I'll be recognized as one. I'm a really good musician and a songwriter, but I think my real legacy will be as a radical.
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.
I want people to see me happy.
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.
I didn't find Jesus. He's been there the whole time.
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 think God is the most unexplored territory in rock and roll music.
It's important for people to talk and get beyond the wall of Facebook and social media.
Even if you don't believe in God, exploring fully the idea of a god or gods should pose no threat to you.
I'm very disappointed in my country right now, because I think we've kind of lost our moral compass.
Do I belong in the conversation about the best artists in the world? My answer is yes, I do.
We were in Japan once where they had 30 kinds of green tea. I thought there was one.
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.'
Your basic person wants to talk about material culture, internet culture. I think about God, cats, nature.
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.
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.
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.