Trent Reznor
Books are better than movies because you design the set the way you want it to look.Collection: Movies
I've always been into computers. When I was getting out of high school and forming my identity musically, all of it was really coming into the fold, computers and drum machines. It felt like, you know, I'm in the right place at the right time. I liked the collision.Collection: Computers
I wanted to escape Small Town U.S.A. To dismiss the boundaries, to explore. My life experience came from watching movies, TV, and reading books and magazines. When your culture comes from watching TV everyday, you're bombarded with images of things that seem cool, places that seem interesting, people who have jobs and careers and opportunities.Collection: Experience
And when the day arrives I'll become the sky and I'll become the sea and the sea will come to kiss me for I am going home. Nothing can stop me now.Collection: Home
I have been wildly enthused about gaming since I was younger, and a career path I chose not to go down but did really consider was getting into programming and game design.Collection: Design
In my life, I was always floating around the edge of the dark side and saying what if take it a little bit too far, and who says you have to stop there, and what's behind the next door. Maybe you gain a wisdom from examining those things. But after a while, you get too far down in the quicksand.Collection: Wisdom
The idea of politics is just so uninteresting to me - I've never paid much attention to it. I don't believe things can really change. It doesn't matter who's president. Nothing really gets resolved. I don't know. I guess that's not the right attitude to take.Collection: Attitude
Though I still have no semblance of a life outside of Nine Inch Nails at the moment, I realize my goals have gone from getting a record deal or selling another record to being a better person, more well-rounded, having friends, having a relationship with somebody.Collection: Relationship
I'm very much aware of the dangers of becoming a cliche. Mr. Anger, someone who gets meaner, angrier on record.Collection: Anger
I realized that I was afraid to really, really try something, 100%, because I had never reached true failure.Collection: Failure
When David Fincher called me up a few years ago and said, 'Hey, I'd like you to score this film 'The Social Network,' I said, 'I'm flattered, but I really don't have any real experience scoring films, and I'd rather not screw it up on a high-profile project. And I like you and I don't want to compromise our friendship.'Collection: Friendship
I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think music should be free.
Self-examination with a close-up mirror in an antiseptic environment is what Nine Inch Nails is based on.
The 'Downward Spiral' album was a record all about beating everybody up - and then 'Hurt' was like a coda saying maybe I shouldn't have done that. But to make the song sound impenetrable because I thought it was a little too vulnerable, I tried to layer it in noise.
I think there's something strangely musical about noise.
Sometimes we pee on each other before we go on stage.
I do actually believe in love. I can't say that I'm 100 percent successful in that department, but I think it's one of the few worthwhile human experiences. It's cooler than anything I can think of right now.
I was excited by the process of Pandora, which I still think is a decent product. Not as great in actuality as it sounds. After the first hour, its weaknesses start to show up.
Spotify - I met those guys before they launched in America and was wildly excited about the idea. 'Wow, this is all the music in the world, for a flat fee.'
I doubt I'll ever pay someone to do a remix again, because there's some amazing stuff just coming out of bedrooms.
It's not like I ride a broom into interviews. I don't hang upside down with a cape on.
I'll be honest, watching the music industry collapse has been demoralizing and disheartening at times.
I had to come to terms about becoming an addict, which, for a long time, I lied to myself about the status of until I couldn't lie any more, 'cause I was either going to die or get better.
When your culture comes from watching TV every day, you're bombarded with images of things that seem cool, places that seem interesting, people who have jobs and careers and opportunities. None of that happened where I was. You're almost taught to realize it's not for you.
I think the reason I was 23 before I ever wrote a song was that I was afraid of testing myself. What would I do if I discovered I didn't have anything to say?
To me, rock music was never meant to be safe. I think there needs to be an element of intrigue, mystery, subversiveness. Your parents should hate it.
The first set of lyrics for the first songs I ever wrote, which are the ones on 'Pretty Hate Machine,' came from private journal entries that I realized I was writing in lyric form.
You can punch a wall or write a song. Just as painful either way, but you have something to show for it at the end of the day with a song.
As long as it feels valid to me and feels sincere, I'll do what I do under the moniker of Nine Inch Nails if it's appropriate. I would hate to think I would ever be in a position where I'm faking it to get a paycheck.
Bow down before the one you serve, you're going to get what you deserve.
Fear has governed my life, if I think about it.
I really try to put myself in uncomfortable situations. Complacency is my enemy.
I've become impossible, holding on to when everything seemed to matter more.
I feel uncomfortable because I'm insecure about who I am.
I write most of my songs when I'm in a bad mood.
When I'm writing music, I'm not playing a character. I'm not Alice Cooper or Gene Simmons or someone like that, who has acknowledged that they are writing music for a character.
I miss how a record label can help spread the word that you have something out.
In my nothing, you were everything, to me.
I think the whole aspect of social networking is vulgar and repulsive in a lot of ways. But I also see why it's appealing - I've had that little high you get from posting stuff online. But then you think, 'Did I need to say that?' I've explored that enough to know to stay kind of quiet these days.
You know, if nobody knows who you are, nobody's going to buy your record.
My advice today, to established acts and new-coming acts, is the same advice I'd give to myself: pause for a minute, and really think about 'What is your goal? Where do you see yourself?'
Nine Inch Nails was born out of Cleveland, Ohio, with me and a friend in a studio working on demos at night. Got a record deal with a small, little label, went on tour in a van, and a couple years later found that somehow we touched a nerve, and that first record resonated with a bunch of people.
Schoolwork came easy to me. I learned to play piano effortlessly. I was coasting.
I realized when I was 23 that I had never really tried anything.
What is exciting is taking back the excitement of being able to debut something to an audience in exactly the way you want to.
Any time I sit down and write music, the first part of that is always centering myself and thinking about who I currently am.
Sometimes the worst thing that can happen is, 'Oh, I'm on stage playing a song,' because you're daydreaming about something else, you're on autopilot. You have to fight that.
When I was growing up, rock & roll helped give me my sense of identity, but I had to search for it.
Why don't the Grammys matter? Because it feels rigged and cheap - like a popularity contest that the insiders club has decided.
Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me.