Billy Corgan Quotes

You give me a @#$%& kazoo and I'll write you a good song.

I went to see a shaman. He put his hands on me, and I cried like a baby for an hour.

In my Corgan brain, I've decided it's almost as simple as 'All you need is love.' Almost.

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.

I lay a lot of blame at the feet of Dusty Baker for not being more strict about fundamentals, which I think would give the team a stronger day-to-day identity.

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.

It was shocking to see Nirvana play, because it was like, "Here's this little guy with a monster-guitar sound." And it was heavier than Black Sabbath. That was shocking.

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.

We're the worst band in America... That makes us the best.

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 want people to see me happy.

There's nothing wrong with technology. It's when technology is the story and not the artist, that's the problem.

Actually, I was having dinner with Michael [Stipe, of R.E.M.] when our second album went platinum, which up until that point was the highest success we'd ever had. And he turned to me during dinner and said, 'Welcome to the deep waters, kid.' I'll never forget that.

My view of the world is always tempered by the fact that there are people who are less fortunate than I am.

I met Scott Stapp when the band was first coming up, great guy. I haven't seen him for years, but a great guy.

I mean, I'm certainly not a 'teaophyte,' or whatever the word would be.

I believe that if the Tribune company ever tries to close down Wrigley Field that you will have a protest from every corner of the globe.

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.

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.

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.

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.

People always called the Cure gloomy, but listening to the Cure made me happy. There was something about the gloominess that gave me comfort, and I think we're the same way.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If practice makes perfect, and no one's perfect, then why practice?

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'.

Intoxicated With the madness I'm in love with My sadness Bullshit beggars, enchanted kingdom Fashion victims through their charcoaled teeth

I use music as some kind of weird salvation to get away from life

I was part of a generation that changed the world - and it was taken over by poseurs.

Once a pumpkin, Always a pumpkin.

It's important for people to talk and get beyond the wall of Facebook and social media.

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.

The Smashing Pumpkins was never meant to be a small band. It was going to either be a big band, or a no band.

In 1992, with the weight of a perceived world on our shoulders, we disappeared into a parking garage to write the songs that would change the course of our lives forever. 'Siamese Dream' represents all of our dreams coming true, while the dreams of a happy band fell apart.

As long as you have faith, you're willing to try to take another chance. God wants you to amble toward the right spot on the horizon. The idea is that you're willing to get up and keep moving toward that light.

You have to keep adapting to the times. If you kind of go with it, it can kind of fun.

I was brought up Roman Catholic. I'm not even baptized.

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.

We've turned into a whining society.

The things I'm guided to do are really strange to me.

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.

Everything about life makes me lonely.

To be able to put your arms around 24 years of music, it's really fun.

It's a simple formula for me now, I don't play any song I don't want to play.

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.