Billy Corgan Thinking Quotations

I do not think wrestling is going to save the world.

I started thinking that if post modernism is about people opening up all their skeletons, I'm going the other way. I don't want anyone knowing anything about me anymore.

You could have a zillion Facebook followers. Those people don't buy records. It's about a hundred to one...Record companies, they don't have any money so they see social media as the free marketing...So,...'Billy, light yourself on fire and stand upside down, and that'll market the record'. I've spent a lot of time thinking about this. I don't think people by records because of anything that happens on Facebook. They buy records cause they're friends say 'I bought this record and I love it'.

Your basic person wants to talk about material culture, internet culture. I think about God, cats, nature.

I think when I listen to old records, it puts me back in the atmosphere of what it felt like to make the record and who was there and what the room looked like. It's more a sensory memory.

I'm very disappointed in my country right now, because I think we've kind of lost our moral compass.

I think God is the most unexplored territory in rock and roll music.

People think I take some sort of masochistic pleasure out of putting out music that's gonna be unpopular.

I was raised a Christian, but I wouldn't call myself a Christian now. I think when I was younger it was easier to focus on the negative, nihilist vision... this is sort of picking up on the other half of the body, which is God and white light.

I did 13-something years of talking to wrestlers and promoters about why they did certain things and why they booked matches a certain way and what they were thinking and whether they were satisfied with the draw. And I got a lot of insight in the business.

I think the days of working with producers in the conventional sense are over for me.

I don't think people are fans of me because I wrote hit songs. I think they're fans because I'm a lunatic or a weirdo. The hit songs came out of my idiosyncratic personality, not the other way around.

I think long and hard about what it is I'm actually trying to do, and then I kind of have to narrow my focus into that. If I don't, I'm too all over the place.

I lay a lot of blame at the feet of Dusty Baker for not being more strict about fundamentals, which I think would give the team a stronger day-to-day identity.

Personally, I think Jesus would like better bands.

I think it would be very interesting to see that many people would probably be okay with paying more for services and goods that they felt were more holistically [generated]. Which means the death of the old system which rewarded people for taking advantage of one another.

Thinking about the future and thinking about the past is really only a way of ignoring the present.

At some point, you protest too much they think you're guilty just because you're protesting.

Usually the intention of the artistic effect is too sophisticated for most people to understand, sort of like a joke that they don't get so they don't think it's funny.

I think rock & roll has prepared me for a lot of flexibility.

I don't think I'm before my time, I just don't think I'm in my time.

I rummage around in artistic things from the past. If you don't understand the context, they wouldn't make any sense. I rummage around in conceptual ideas of the future, but if you don't know the source of the thinking, [it] wouldn't make any sense.

I think humankind is going to have to evolve into systems that are more transparent. Then people will be able to make more integral choices about the food they eat.

Fur is a contentious issue. Meat is a contentious issue. GMOs are a contentious issue. I think this whole thing going on about whether or not products should be labeled if they have GMOs in them - I, as a consumer, would like to know if I'm eating GMO food. If I choose to buy it then it's my choice.

We were just a little immature in the past. I think we actually wanted to create difficult situations for ourselves just to be able to use that emotion for stimulation.

I get more out of life just being myself, by just being a human being. Not by being a rock star, not by being whatever. Sometimes I act like a jerk, but I think people respect me for being myself. That's the ultimate thing about the Smashing Pumpkins.

I have a hard time thinking of men trying to sing my songs, because I think my perspective is definitely feminine.

I dont think we're the type of band people look at and say, 'I want to grow up to be just like that'. We're like a train wreck.

I don't think '90s music was as significant as '60s music in terms of changing the world, but it was significant, and I think it was similarly disillusioning when you realize the mainstream just

Instead of taking the 'I'm cool, I hope you adore me' path (with my music), I chose the path of how to connect. I think that's the reason a lot of people feel a deeper connection with our band than other bands, and I also feel that's why people polarize on us. If you don't get it, it seems preposterous; if you do get it, it's really heavy -- it has a weight to it.

I want to be able to look back and think that as long as I was going this, I did the best that I could.

The reason I don't play any of the old songs is because I really honor my old band, and I think that those songs are best served within the context of that band.

It makes me crazy to think that somebody might attack my city or any other city.

I really think it's a white, bourgeois idea to pretend that you don't have influences. It seems to be the obsession strictly of white people in college.

I think the original, 'They're the next Jane's Addiction' things that people said about us in the beginning have been pretty much wiped out.

People always called the Cure gloomy, but listening to the Cure made me happy. There was something about the gloominess that gave me comfort, and I think we're the same way.

The Pumpkins love rock-and-roll, we absolutely love it, but we also think it's a flatulent, ego-serving kiddie playground. You can have your cake and eat it too.