My father was a guitar player, and I was raised with a super high standard of what good guitar playing was.

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?

I think trying to be cool is the worst possible ambition - and I have never suffered from it.

The hardest thing about Berlin is letting it belong to other people.

every failure is also a victory.

I don't care to dress up except when it is necessary or good for my business.

I don't think you're dying," I said. "I think you've just got a touch of cancer. He smiled. Gallows humor.

I have me. I have God. I have my son. Everything else is extra.

Art should be concerned more with life than with art.

I think all musicians should understand that you have chosen not to be a soldier but a musician.

I know," she said. "You have a stone in your heart, and some days it's so heavy there is nothing to be done. But you don't have to be alone for it. You should have come to me. I understand.

I'm like a little boy from Virginia. I'm a backpacker. In my head, I'm left of centre. I come from the pool of weirdoes.