I've thought many times, 'I can't write this,' but on my own little planet I found the courage to write it because it was true. I put aside fear of Father being angry with me. It's hard though; the world pales in comparison with the stature of a parent. In some small-consolation way, my parents feel I'm helping people by giving them something to identify with. They feel proud in a sort of reverse way. My mom's proud of the fact that lots of kids look up to me.

Billy [Corgan] and I used to spend quite a lot of time together in Los Angeles, when I first moved there.

Thinking about the future and thinking about the past is really only a way of ignoring the present.

To re-embrace what I once loved about music has been a warming process for me, because it's a good, earned feeling now.

In the beginning, though, I have to admit that I did have a chip on my shoulder. I did want to prove everyone wrong. But after I went through the process and came out the other side, it wasn't about anyone else.

I've had a lot of things rendered as not being effective or as some indication of my lack of sanity, only to be praised ten, fifteen, twenty years later for what I did once in this overt consciousness.

I've been too productive for too long, and despite what anybody wants to strip away from me, I am influential. I am.