I want to be able to look back and think that as long as I was going this, I did the best that I could.

Like any good tree that one would hope to grow, we must set our roots deep into the ground so that what is real will prosper in the Light of Love.

James, that's a bad situation. I'm not saying it's not repairable, but it's pretty far. When you go from being in one of the best bands in the world to some cover band... as far as I'm concerned, he was playing down at the pub.

Now the expectation is that, once the public decides that the artist is gentrified, the public demands that the artist stop growing. And [the public] actually puts all their energy into reasserting or re-establishing what the artist has long ago left behind. Because that's what they want. The source of creativity, the gift that's been given, be damned.

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.

Usually the intention of the artistic effect is too sophisticated for most people to understand, sort of like a joke that they don't get so they don't think it's funny.

To me, music was about being accepted and escaping from this crummy existence.