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 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?

The Lesson is Life and Life is the Lesson, and the Lesson does not contain a single Atom.

Be master of your destiny.

It is not the qualified voters, but the qualified voters who choose to vote, that constitute political power.

I do expose my body, but only because I think people should have something nice to look at.

Do you really wish to disobey me, Marbas? Do you wish to anger my father?

Sunday is the day I connect with Buenos Aires. I speak to or text my mother every day, but on Sunday I phone everyone.

It's a funny thing about writing. You get so balled up in a story idea that you lose your perspective and forget that human being might read your words someday.

Hany Abu-Assad was sitting next to me, and his film 'Paradise Now' had won the Golden Globe. He said to me at the Globes, 'Paradise now, talk to you later.' [laughs] I gave him a big hug for that.

Mediocrity has no greater consolation than in the thought that genius is not immortal.

A long project is like a secret houseguest, hidden in your study, waiting to be fed and visited.