Talk:Billy Corgan

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• Music's pretty cool and I'm glad to be a part of it. Sometimes when you reach for the stars, you end up in the fucking shit. I don't believe in God. I don't believe in America. I don't believe in rock-and-roll. I believe in me.
  • from Lollapalooza at Cowning Stadium

• If you take any band that's ascended to stadium rock and look at their live show it becomes a series of everybody-put-your-hands-in-the-air singalongs. Why is that? Because they're dealing with the lowest common denominator of the musical audience -- the least amount of sophistication and the least amount of emotional connection with the band... And sometimes when we play, I feel that people are only there to hear 'Disarm' or 'Today' and they don't give a fuck about the rest of the show or who we are as people, yet they want some emotion from us.

• Great music completely obliterates any conceptions of genre.

• Why do I need 1,000 people validating my existence?

• Don't judge yourself by somebody else's standards. You will always lose.

• Everything about life makes me lonely.

• If practice makes perfect and nobody's perfect then why practice?

• If I had spent fourteen months in a small room with Jesus, I'd want to fist fight with him.

• We are, we have been, and always will be the Smashing Pumpkins.

• Once a pumpkin, always a pumpkin.

• Been there, done that, seen it, heard it, pissed on it.
  • from a SPIN magazine article

• Some people want to express...apathy with noise and brutality...It's the want to transcend all that, to find some deeper essence in life that drives me.

• When I watch a puppet show, I'm not watching the puppets -- I'm trying to see who's pulling the strings.

• Everyone has a misguided perception of my brain. When people ask me questions about being sad, or thinking sad, or wanting to be sad, or do I listen to sad songs, it makes me think that I must be sad.
  • from a 'Rockline' interview

• The basic thing is just fuck everybody. It's that feeling where no one understands: 'Who the fuck are my friends? Fuck you. Fuck everybody. Fuck everything.' It's just that thought - pure frustration.
  • regarding "Fuck You (An Ode to No One)"

• And with 'disconnection,' we're talking about different levels of existence here, like in high school. I'd sit and look at that fuckin' clock and think, 'I'm not gonna make it! I can't make through the rest of this day - I'm gonna freak out, I'm gonna fuckin' strangle this teacher, I'm gonna fuckin' shoot this guy next to me!' Well how do you get through that? You just turn yourself off. How do you get through, like, your fuckin' parent beating you over the head? You just shut it off.
  • regarding the "disconnection" lyric in "Fuck You (An Ode to No One)"

• I don't know if God would agree with me, but believing in God is kind of unimportant when compared to believing in yourself. Because if you go with the idea that God gave you a mind and an ability to judge things, then he would want you to believe in yourself and not worry about believing in him. By believing in yourself you will come to the conclusion that will point to something.

• The thing that makes it all worth it is when someone comes up and says, 'I had a really hard time in my life and your album really helped me.' As long as that happens, all the idiots in the world and all the stupid press can say what they want to; it just doesn't matter.

• You see all those empty seats? That's not who we play for -- we play for you. I want you to remember we won't forget you -- so don't you forget about us.
  • to diehard fans who stayed at a concert for "Silverfuck"

• This is war, motherfucker, and don't you forget it. It's us versus them, and if you're giving in you're giving up.
  • from the introduction to The Aeroplane Flies High box set

• In the beginning, I just viewed them as a cute teen band riding the grunge wave, then they seemed to 'go away' for awhile, so when I heard that they were 'all grown up,' I didn't think much of it ... but when I came across what they were doing, I was struck by the brilliance of it, and the honesty in it, and realized how wrong I'd been. ... Silverchair's mature work evokes for me the best of highly melodic, emotional music with a true understanding of rock grandeur...those are rare forces, not very often put together.
  • "on Silverchair's Young Modern album"

• Music has basically followed a shallow route for 50 years. People come along, do something really cool and different, everyone copies them, the original gets diluted, distorted, and eventually the diluted, in most cases, achieves more success than the thing that started it. And I kinda thought the alternative scene was gonna be different: We thought 'Brave new world!' So it's really weird to be competing against the imitators. It wasn't always comfortable competing against Nirvana, and it was certainly not healthy living under that shadow at times. But at least there was honor in it. We always respected that it was a great band - Pearl Jam too. But competing against Bush?! It's nothing to get your dick hard about, you know what i mean? There's no mojo in that!

• As a 28 year old who's lived long enough to know the difference, I know now that the feelings I felt at 16 were not necessarily correct. But however overly dramatic, the desperation and hopelessness I felt at 16 was my reality.

• I think sex would be the keyword. Our music is kind of like having sex. Well, sometimes you go fast sometimes you go slow sometimes you stop.
  • On the Pumpkins' style and their dynamics. Part of an interview on the Mashed Potatoes Box Set. Disc 4 track 1.