Moby Quotes

We hope that as a species we're capable of dealing with environmental catastrophe before it actually does collectively kill most of us.

I was never encouraged to believe anything. I was brought up in a profoundly agnostic or pantheistic community.

If I had to label myself now, I'd call myself a Taoist-Christian-agnostic quantum mechanic.

Once the pathological low self-esteem goes, that's when things go downhill.

When I was very young, I played in a punk-rock band, but I also studied music theory and classical music.

To quote Homer Simpson, alcohol is the cause and solution to all of life's problems. I don't think there's anything wrong with drinking and drug use, if people can do it and not hurt themselves. But it got to the point where I was really hurting myself.

One of the main reasons I'm vegan is because I'm ethically lazy. My friends who eat meat or who eat eggs have to sometimes wrestle with the ethical consequences of their actions. By being vegan, I take the easy way out.

For me, New York still ranks as the most beautiful and the most interesting city in the world. It is also the most varied in terms of the things it has to offer.

The worst case scenario is you really like someone's work, then you meet them and they're a self-involved, entitled douchebag.

In some ways it's hard to see electronic music as a genre because the word "electronic" just refers to how it's made. Hip-hop is electronic music. Most reggae is electronic. Pop is electronic. House music, techno, all these sorts of ostensibly disparate genres are sort of being created with the same equipment.

I was raised with this idea that we're supposed to be tolerant of other people's opinions, but then what happens if other people's opinions are racist and hateful and wrong?

I find the fact that so few people buy albums to be strangely emancipating. There's absolutely no reason for 99% of musicians making albums to think about actually selling albums. So as a musician you can just make an album for the love of making albums.

It’s perfectly natural for me to sit down and talk about meditating and spiritual practice with my friends. But then I realize, how would it sound to a drunk cynical guy in London?

Keep your weather eye open, and sing out every time.

I still never get recognized. Small, bald white guys like myself - we all kind of look the same.

I'm just fascinated with the world that I can see, but I'm even more fascinated with the world that I can't see.

I walk out my front door in New York and I'm out on the street and there are people everywhere. L.A. is so much more spread out, so it's really easy in L.A. to have a little more isolation and to just not see as many people.

It's heartbreaking that so many hundreds of millions of people around the world are desperate for the right to vote, but here in America people stay home on election day.

I taught Bible Study, and there was period where I thought all of my beliefs were right, and everybody who disagreed with me was wrong.

It's better to sail with a moody good captain than a laughing bad one.

The main thing that excites me and makes me want to get out of bed is the thought of being able to go into my studio to work on music.

A great song is a great song, whether it's on vinyl or CD or cassette or reel to reel or mp3. Then again, that might be an overly optimistic view, but I do think that great music will transcend the medium in which it is delivered.

I made a record in 1996 called 'Animal Rights' that was a very difficult, very dark punk-rock record. Of all the records I've made, it's my favorite one. It's also the one that got the worst reviews and sold the worst.

I think the word 'blog' is an ugly word. I just don't know why people can't use the word 'journal.'

Unfortunately I'm still straight. But who knows, life is complicated and maybe I'll wake up gay tomorrow! Here's hoping. And congratulations to everyone who lives in a place where they can marry the person they love, regardless of gender!

I think that growing up very poor in a very wealthy town gave me a sense of being an outsider, and I hated it when I was growing up.

I think the ideal job in that alternative universe would be to lead whitewater rafting trips through the Grand Canyon. So maybe I'd be a guy leading whitewater rafting trips at the Grand Canyon. Or maybe a professional skydiver.

Now small fowls flew screaming over the yet yawning gulf; a sullen white surf beat against its steep sides; then all collapsed; and the great shroud of the sea rolled on as it rolled five thousand years ago.

For some reason New York is the epicentre for people who hate me. Maybe this is another reason why I left New York but I get more hatred directed towards me there than any other place.

The demise of the monolithic record industry has been, for a lot of people, really liberating and emancipating.

One problem with a lot of musicians is that they remove themselves in a studio and make a record and assume people are going to pay attention to it just because they've made it.

I feel compelled to make art that on one hand reflects and sometimes almost creates like a sense of comfort when confronted with the strangeness of the world.

The term 'renaissance man' is always bandied about. I don't think that applies to me. You think about Leonardo da Vinci, and he was a painter and a physicist and an architect, and that is a true renaissance man.

One can only snort so many ants and have so much sex before one starts to long for the comfort and companionship of a good book.

One time I was doing an interview for a gay magazine and halfway through the journalist found out I wasn't gay. He said, 'Sorry, I can't continue the interview.' Because they only had gay public figures in their magazine. I felt so crestfallen. I wanted to tell him: but I play fundraisers for gay marriage! I'd rather my kids were gay than straight!'

There's something about the human brain, that it actually has a predilection towards negativity, which served us really well when we lived in an environment that was very threatening.

I like my coffee like I like my romantic partners: cold and bitter and prone to giving me anxiety attacks.

Growing up in Connecticut, all the Colonial houses looked alike. In Los Angeles, the diversity is so extreme, it's baffling.

I grew up obsessed with science fiction, and when I was really young, I wanted to be a scientist.

Over time, I started becoming more aware of the vastness and complexity of the universe, which led me away from any sort of conventional Christianity. I still love the teachings of Christ, but I also believe that the human condition prevents us from having any true objective knowledge of the universe. All human belief systems are inherently flawed. If I had to label myself now, I'd call myself a Taoist-Christian-agnostic quantum mechanic. Also, there's nothing in the actual Bible that limits a Christian in their interest in science. Anti-science is a function of ignorant fundamentalism.

I love going on tour and playing music for people.

There might be a lot of difference between Republicans and Democrats on key social issues like women's rights and health care. But when it comes to taking corporate cash, they're pretty much the same beast.

I feel like the vast majority of the world's problems would disappear if suddenly everyone on the planet were relatively self-aware and capable of honest self-love and compassion.

I have no perspective as regards my work. One reason I put out records and books is people respond to it, and it enables you to actually see the work more clearly. It's a form of therapy for me. Sometimes abusive therapy.

One of the central flaws in the state of contemporary music is that the major record companies have failed to incorporate that simple fact into their business plans. They've come into an industry that's based on idiosyncratic artists and tried to erase every idiosyncratic aspect out of it.

I learned in the last few years that it's really unhappy and really unsustainable to try and base your well being on something as arbitrary as record sale and critical acclaim and the interests of the public. All of those things are so fickle. So my approach now to music is I want to make records that I love, and I hope that other people love them, then that's OK.

It's sometimes too easy to point fingers when circumstances dramatically go awry, but as an addict, I'm ultimately responsible for my own decisions, no matter how benign or tragic the consequences.

I live in New York and I love hanging out in gay clubs, and a lot of my friends are gay. But, for better or for worse, I'm not gay.