It was a kind of sado-masochism. I would take the things that were painful to me and elevate them and, through the mantra of music, make them into a release.

Swans are majestic, beautiful looking creatures. With really ugly temperaments.

The sexuality of children - there's a lot friction there. That tension interests me a lot.

You make your work and you can't ask for approval when you're doing it. Otherwise, it's going to be untruthful in some way.

The goal is ecstasy, but I don't want to make some sort of saccharine pop music. I want to make something that's completely uncompromising: the best possible music ever made.

The music takes you. It has to be alive. It's like you hammer something, and the way it happens to bleed leads you into new directions.

I don't want to sound like everybody else.

I like loud electric guitars because I like how you can just lose your entire being in the sound.

I'm the band leader. That's not to say that the other people are my minions - they all put in a tremendous amount of personality, and push the music in ways I would never expect.

I used to routinely break my ribs doing stupid things onstage, but I have a healthy fear of breaking my bones now.

I'm pretty confident that people are going to come along for the ride. If they don't, tough.

The auto immune disease is like politics in an organization, attacking own cells thinking it's foreign!

I thought I would die without you, in reality I was reborn...

You are not going to loot a candy shop in the middle of a war!

Shock waves to a tired brain, sends that hungry lady to my door again. She's my shelter from the storm when I feel the rain, entertaining white powder.

Was that life? Well then, once more!

Nothing came easy. I was just born with a need to explore every part of my mind. And with long searching and hard work, I became devoted to my restlessness.

When man resolved to imitate walking, he invented the wheel, which does not look like a leg. In doing this, he was practicing surrealism without knowing it.

I was never actually signed to the label; I was just the annoying rapper that was always around at the studio sessions.

and the rain went rollin down the windowpanes, and the shadows wiggled n' squiggled on her check and forehead like black veins.

I used a lot of pancake makeup and a prayer, and a Buddhist chant.