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

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.

Shave your head, wear a 'ZERO' shirt. Take away your identity. What do you have? You still have yourself.

If the next record is no better than Gish, then we've failed.

As a healthy person, my breakfasts are very bland and boring. Think kind of a white pasty gruel. Or there can be an occasional banana over the top.

There's something going on right now in America, where the American spirit or character is reasserting itself around liberty. I think it's an important time, and I'm trying to document that as an artist. If I just filter what I read through the media, if I just go through what I read through the media, I'm not really in touch with the world I grew up in. I know there's a gap there, I talk to my relatives, I talk to people I meet traveling around, and their mind is on something completely different.

The ideology of the Smashing Pumpkins was ultimately more valuable than the music of the Smashing Pumpkins. That's what critics can't put their finger on.