In my particular instance, I came from a family that didn't have anything. Everything I earned in life I made. Myself. With songs that I wrote.

I believe that if the Tribune company ever tries to close down Wrigley Field that you will have a protest from every corner of the globe.

If practice makes perfect, and no one's perfect, then why practice?

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.

I never wanted to leave the Smashing Pumpkins. That was never the plan.

I think a spiritual journey is not so much a journey of discovery. It's a journey of recovery. It's a journey of uncovering your own inner nature. It's already there.

Great music completely obliterates any conceptions of genre.

I was part of a generation that changed the world - and it was taken over by poseurs.

Saturn Return is just the return of your planets to their original position.

Compliments and criticism are all ultimately based on some form of projection.

Where is this great love for rock and roll that existed for 50 or 60 years?

Plucking a rose only proves you desire it, but nurturing it proves you love it.

If we are to put an end to division, people from all political persuasions will have to stop fighting one another and seek true unity, not just a consensus that benefits one party.

Down sank the great red sun, and in golden, glimmering vapors Veiled the light of his face, like the Prophet descending from Sinai.

I should call myself four market Norton. I'm great in Boston and Cleveland. I do good in Phillie, New Jersey.

I don't read anything anymore. I don't have the eyesight. I read my own copy, that's all. I think I've read everything that's worth reading.

If people perceive themselves as having very little opportunities to be fulfilled, then it cheapens their life and outlook. The solution is to reverse it; make sure they know opportunities abound.

Art is the ability to separate the significant from the insignificant.

All the fear has left me now, I'm not frightened anymore. It's my heart that pounds beneath my flesh, it's my mouth that pushes out this breath.

Ray Charles, in his own way, it's like at the beginning, Ray Charles changed American music, not once but twice.

That, sir, which serves and seeks for gain, And follows but for form, Will pack, when it begins to rain, And leave thee in a storm.