Moby
I was on food stamps until I was 18 and became an adult.Collection: Food
When I was growing up, albums were my closest friends, as sad as that may sound - Joy Division's 'Closer,' or Echo and the Bunnymen's 'Heaven Up Here'... I had a more intimate relationship with those records than I did with most of the people in my life.Collection: Sad
I met Elton John at an Interview dinner, and we just sort of became friends. He's got such a wicked sense of humor.Collection: Humor
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.Collection: Attitude
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.Collection: Patience
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.Collection: Architecture
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.Collection: Success
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.Collection: Learning
The good thing about working alone is I get a lot done and I can experiment more. The bad thing is I miss out on the gregarious, social way that most musicians work.
Traffic terrifies me.
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.
When I was in my twenties, I thought I was bulletproof.
It's sometimes too easy to point fingers when circumstances dramatically go awry, but as an addict, I'm ultimately responsible for my own decisions, no matter how benign or tragic the consequences.
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.
You could spend every waking moment online and still only experience one-trillionth of what's out there. I find that a little overwhelming.
It seems so antithetical to the teachings of Christ to proclaim your faith in public. I mean, of course you're not supposed to hide your light under a bushel.
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.
You can sit down with Reason or Ableton and literally in a couple of hours make a very good-sounding record. But then a lot of people become contented with that, rather than pushing themselves to making something that sounds 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.
A lot of people do talk about the demise of the album, but I still believe that if an artist tries hard to make a great album, people will buy it and listen to it as an album, rather than just a collection of random songs.
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.
My uncle is from Argentina, so I grew up hearing Spanish. My Spanish isn't very good, but my pronunciation isn't terrible.
There are a lot of public figures who, before they take a stand on a issue, they talk about it with their publicist and they figure out how it's going to affect record sales. Life is really too short to worry about that sort of thing.
I think the word 'blog' is an ugly word. I just don't know why people can't use the word 'journal.'
I joined Facebook purely so I could play online Scrabble. You have eight tiles instead of seven, so you tend to have higher scores. I'm somewhere between 400 and 500.
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 wasn't raised Catholic; I just really like the image of a neutral and benign Mary floating around somewhere, being nice to people.
I need an audience way more than an audience needs me.
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.
As a New Yorker you can't help but be proud of the fact that so much music and culture started here. Punk rock, jazz, hip-hop and house music started here, George Gershwin debuted 'Rhapsody in Blue' here; the Velvet Underground are from New York.
I've never seen 'Friends;' I've never seen 'Seinfeld.' I've heard people reference these things but I've never seen them.
I can't think of any musician or producer who has influenced me more than Brian Eno. From when he was in Roxy Music, producing Devo, the Talking Heads and My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.
The strange thing about hotel rooms is that they look familiar and seem familiar and have many of the accoutrements that seem domestic and familiar, but they are really weird, alien and anonymous places.
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.
I love to be busy. I'm envious of people who are able to take their spare time and relax. All I like to do is work. Perhaps it's lingering Calvinist guilt?
Punishing people for listening to music is exactly the wrong way to protect the music business.
David Lynch is my friend, and I love his movies and his art and his music. Few things make me happier than working with him.
I'd just rather have a really sharp, interesting, smart gay son than some big dumb hetero meathead.
The progressive movement needs more crazy and amoral/immoral right-wing politicians and pundits like Tom DeLay and Newt Gingrich and Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity.
People assume that somehow fame and wealth will keep mortality at bay.
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.
I was never encouraged to believe anything. I was brought up in a profoundly agnostic or pantheistic community.
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.
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 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.
There are some public figures who are very private and almost hide behind their work. I try to be as open as possible.
There is a lot of music in the world that I love that does not always get the appropriate exposure.
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.
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 know, in my heart of hearts, I don't do things for money.