I had my gothy phase, but I was never a troublemaker or anything like that.

The things that keep me awake at night are things like textures and instrumentation and plotting out what things are going to do and what the sounds are that I'm trying to capture.

There's always room for improvement. I'm always focused on the results, and those are the precise things that I don't really experience as a part of the performance.

I dont think I threw myself into music because I had the best intentions; it was because I was really angry.

I always wanted to get into rock music so I could cover up my real personality, change my voice, and create a false self to hide behind.

I love everybody. You have to embrace all facets of humanity; love and accept everyone as being part of yourself.

I get to live down my reputation for being cantankerous if I slowly evolve towards being a really good live show.

I'm not dissatisfied, just not satisfied in an ultimate sense.

I never see songs as permanent. I'm always in a state of revising everything.

My goal is to make something special and pure, and that keeps me going, keeps me busy on the path of sobriety.

I procrastinate, and I push writing to the last available moment, because I don't like to settle on anything. I guess you can call it indecision or you can call it holding out for inspiration.

Only in the love of those who do not serve a purpose, love begins to unfold.

I hesitate to use a pathologizing label, but underneath the so-called narcissistic personality is definitely shame and the paralyzing fear of being ordinary.

You know it's very hard to maintain a theory in the face of life that comes crashing about you.

envy and hatred fascinate the eyes and never make them see things as they are.

I talk and talk and talk, and I haven't taught people in 50 years what my father taught by example in one week.

We suffer from the illusion that the faster we run, the more likely we are to grasp happiness. The truth is that the velocity necessary for success rarely exceeds the rate of reflection.

The rich is the one that rules over those of little means, and the borrower is servant to the man doing the lending.

Life, that can shower you with so much splendour, is unremittingly cruel to those who have given up.

It is ironic that anyone who appeals to religious values today runs the risk of being called 'divisive' or attacked as an enemy of pluralism.