People didn't get to see how other towns interpreted the underground ethos, and so they developed their own unique versions of it.

Just as not all popular albums are wonderful, not all wonderful albums are popular.

You didn't have to be a huge rock star; you just had to do well enough to continue doing what you wanted to do. It wasn't about hitting the jackpot, it was about sustainability.

Bon Jovi's trick is to use heavy-metal chords and still sound absolutely safe. Rock & roll used to be rebellion disguised as commercialism; now so much of it is commercialism disguised as rebellion.

Now that the generation that grew up on '80s indie-rock has attained influential positions in the culture, that music is the new yardstick. And that will shift yet again some day.

I really believe in the power of music - and I mean literally the power of musical tones - to rearrange the way you can think.

Naturally, no one knows more about music than musicians. They talk about their own work all the time, but they rarely get to talk about other people's music.

There's no glamour in Nirvana, no glamour at all, in fact.

There's a whole apparatus for indie bands now, but back in the eighties it was just getting built. The early people really took it on the chin.

Nine Inch Nails' sound is dominated by clanging synths and sardonic, shrieking vocals.

I have this theory, bands with enigmatic lyrics attract crazies.

To be a great success, you must do two things without fear: love and share.

Bring all your power out my friend, and throw away such Gods, such doctrines, such institutions, that impede in the path of human progress.

I began a conversation with the heads of our esteemed department of political science, and instantly I concluded, 'Hopelessly incompetent!

[To Oleg Cassini:] Just make sure no one has exactly the same dress I do ... I want all of mine to be original & no fat little woman hopping around in the same dress.

It would be as useless to perceive how things 'actually look' as it would be to watch the random dots on untuned television screens.

An actor who's a control freak, that doesn't work. We have to be malleable. We cannot come in and try to control or dominate.

I know now: I do not hope for anything. I do not fear anything, I have freed myself from both the mind and the heart, I have mounted much higher, I am free .

If you are not leaning, no one will let you down.

We live in a box of space and time. Movies are windows in its walls.

For me the moment of death will be a moment of jubilation, not of fear. I cried when I was born and I shall die laughing.