Music is supposed to be interwoven into the fabric of society; it is not supposed to be a plaything that is there to serve the population's titillation of the moment.

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?

Attitude Is More Important Than Talent

We have too many high sounding words and too few actions that correspond with them.

if ethics is not the engine of success, in the train of growth, it sure is a guard, with a flag, which may be green, or at times red

We all have our down days, but it's not hard to smile and say, 'Thank you.'

The power is from within, but we cannot receive it unless we give it.

My teaching forces me to articulate what I think works in a piece of fiction and how I think it works. All of that gives me energy as a writer.

As an elephant in the battlefield withstands arrows shot from bows all around, even so shall I endure abuse.

We love to talk about justice. It's the doing of justice that's hard...I believe it is work we are called to do

Love has no great influences upon the sum of life.

Banal ideas cannot be rescued by beautiful execution.