Last Updated: 12/27/00

"bless us all for what we think and feel is all we really have" - Billy Corgan -

"We come, we saw, we kicked fucking ass - thats the way I want us to be remembered" - Billy Corgan -

"I'm glad that people are trying to get our music early off of the internet. I'd be kind of scared if they didn't " - Billy Corgan -

"You got Courtney Love to cook for you! Your pimp hand must be very strong." - Howard Stern addressing Billy -

Jebediah (supporting band for SP at melbourne 1998) (after realising that their guitars were really out of tune) : "eh at least the pumpkins won't do that to you" Billy (later when the pumpkins were on stage): "Geez Jebediah were fucking shit" - Jebediah / Billy Corgan -

James: "Surgeon General says crowd surfing is bad for your back." Billy: "You know something is off when there's crowd surfing during '1979'" - James Iha and Billy Corgan during the Seattle, WA show on the Sacred + Profane Tour. Spoken after a vote was taken in which crowd surfing was officially band for the remainder of the concert-

"If practice makes perfect and nobody's perfect, then why practice?" - Billy Corgan -

"Contrary to what you've heard, contrary to what you've read, the revolution is not over. It has just begun." - Billy Corgan -

"For a 6-foot-3 guy with no hair and a whiny voice, I´ve done all right" - Billy Corgan -

"...and a fuck you to all those who will never understand" - Billy Corgan -

"Everyone knows she's an idiot..." - In a James Van Ostel Interview Billy said this about Mrs. Osbourne -

"'Disarm' is about my childhood and how I turned into an asshole." - Billy Corgan -

"You know where I got the title for "Mayonaise"? I looked in my refrigerator." - Billy Corgan -

"I'm glad that I'm such a good rhymer, Better than being a social climber, Just because I'm a bit brighter, Than some fucking writer." -Fax Billy Corgan sent to a reporter who said SP sucked.

"I'll die someday, and it won't be mythical or magical, I'll just bite into a Twinkie and fall over!" - Billy Corgan -

"In 1991, we were competing with the real deal. Now we're competing with Nirvana mimics." - Billy Corgan -

"Ten fucking years I've known this guy (James), and I just want to drop kick his head." - Billy Corgan -

"Look, I'm saying what I want to say, and if you don't fucking like it, too fucking bad." - Billy Corgan -

"Every pillar that's set up is meant to be knocked over. All you have to be afraid of is what people are gonna think." - Billy Corgan -

"When I think of famous, I think of serial killers or politicians. I think being in a band is just an excuse to not work." - Billy Corgan -

"Say you write a song about a chandelier, and the chandelier gives off light. And the light is the color red and red reminds you of the color you're not supposed to wear around a bull. So you name the song 'Cow'." - Billy Corgan -

"The whole point of the Smashing Pumpkins was to blow everybody away, so it didn't make sense to be funny at the same time. We were too busy trying to pummel your fucking head in." - Billy Corgan -

"The closer I get back to being who I really am, the stronger the music gets." - Billy Corgan -

"In the same old haunts I still find my friends." - Billy Corgan -

"Well, we have brought certain things upon ourselves. I've certainly brought things upon us with my mouth." - Billy Corgan -

"We can look you in the eye and talk to you about life, heart, love, rock 'n' roll, whatever, but we do not have the moral authority to tell people how to vote or what to do to their bodies. We're just a rock band." - Billy Corgan -

"I was a jock but I wasn't on the sports team. I played guitar, but I didn't hang with the stoners.,I just couldn't hang in any way, and when you're young and you can't hang, you oppose. So I was anti-everything. Fuck you all." - Billy Corgan -

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

"I think it's probably because we didn't do dumb things like, 'Wave your hands in the air' that we suffered a little, but I would rather suffer and not be a fool." - Billy Corgan -

"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."

"If a man can't keep himself from doing those kinds of things with everything to lose, his band, his life, his status, his economic and whatever future... If he can't stop himself and pick himself up from that, then what's gonna stop him? Us? Us three suburbanites? It ain't gonna happen."

"The whole point of the Smashing Pumpkins was to blow everybody away, so it didn't make sense to be funny at the same time. We were too busy trying to pummel your f**king head in."

"Well, we have brought certain things upon ourselves. I've certainly brought things upon us with my mouth."

"We had a wonderful time with this kind of grunge awareness, where suddenly rock was cool again. People wanted to head loud guitars. It was a great time, and I'm glad we were there. But the gimmick part has worn off."

"The weird nihilism that permeates Mellon Collie is extremely relevant to what's going on right now. So many kids are intelligent and articulate, but they don't know what to do with themselves."

"We can look you in the eye and talk to you about life, heart, love rock'n'roll, whatever, but we do not have the moral authority to tell people how to vote or what to do with their bodies. We are just a rock band."

"We're the worst band in America...that makes us the best"

"We've come to the conclusion that we're exactly where we want to be. If you're going to put us onstage for 90 minutes of three hours, we are going to give you more than anyone else, and we are going to kick your ass harder than anyone else. You can laugh at us, poke fingers at us, but for what it is, we're as good as it's going to get."

"You can only be this high-powered mojo rock band for so long, then you just can't look people in the eye. So, we've projected our own demise."

"We are a bit preposterous, but we're also a really special band."

"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."

"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 don't even want to discuss how many people told me that making an album with 28 songs at this point in our career was crazy. Everyone, including the people at our record label, wanted us to just take a nice, safe path, and produce another album like Siamese Dreams. My attitude was just the opposite. Thankfully, it hasn't turned out to badly."

"Our concerts have it's moments when it's stupid, where it's funny, little cheerleading moments, and there's moments when we are just totally crushing the audience."

"Now we've come to the realization that we don't have to live in a virtual state of anarchy in order to make the music happen."

"There's a lot of chemistry in the band that the outside world could never witness. In our band, D'Arcy is the moral conscience-it's really hard to do something if D'Arcy thinks its f**ked."

"For, like, two years, every interview was, and occasionally still is, "Don't you guys hate each other?"

"As we've gotten older, it's the diversity among us that's made us more of a compete entity. We're not like an untuned motor anymore."

"The music is all we care about - so if that's bad, then we're bad"

"This friend of mine asked me 'Do you really mean it when you sing "God is empty just like me"?', and 363 days out of the year, the answer is no. But those two days I feel it, I feel it pretty intensely."

"There is and will not be any public record on my marriage. That's one thing I have to draw the lines around."

"You know, my father's biggest complaint recently is people keep telling him he looks like me."

"Me and my father have the same slouch and walk. I've been to family gatherings, after dinner, everyone goes into the living room, there will be eight people all sitting in the same Corgan way."

"Back in 1979, I was bigger than most kids by a lot. When I was 12 I led my baseball team in home runs. By the time I was 14, I had been totally passed up. That's when I turned to guitar."

"I was never violent, but I had that streak underneath me all along. People who have known me all my life, when they first saw us play, they were like "Holy f**k". because I'd turn into this beastie. They had never seen that side of me, but I knew it was there."

"I was a jock, but I wasn't on the sports team. I played guitar, but I didn't hang out with the stoners. I just couldn't hang in any way, and when you're young and you can't hang, you oppose. So I was anti-everything, f**k you all."

"Say you write a song about a chandelier, and the chandelier gives off light. And the light is the color red and red reminds you of the color your not supposed to wear around a bull. So you name the song Cow."

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

"The Smashing Pumpkins was never meant to be a small band. It was going to either be a big band, or a no band."

"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 wierd 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!"

"I think it's probably because we didn't do dumb things like, `Wave your hands in the air' that we suffered a little, but I would rather suffer and not be a fool."

"If there was a simple ethic for the band, it was that we want to be able to do whatever we want to do." "I reached a point in my life where I felt like I was living through some old character."

"The closer I get back to being who I really am, the stronger the music gets."

"The simplest way that I can understand therapy, is that we're born a certain way, we're taught to be something different, and we spend our whole lives trying to unravel it."

"I've become the guy who's like a complaining, whining neurotic."

"The world is not set up for a band like the Smashing Pumpkins---it's set up for bands who can play the angle better."

"When you move artistically, the natural inclination is to denounce everything that's gone before."

"On an idealistic level, doing a double conceptual album is totally uncool, but I'm gonna pull it off."

"To me, music was always about being accepted and escaping from this crummy, mortal existence."

"Smashing Pumpkins was never meant to be a small bad-- it was either going to be a big band or no band." (Jim Stapleton book)

"He had the Michael Schenker, black-and-white flying-V guitar-- and at the moment, it all made sense: this was what I was supposed to do." (Jim Stapleton book)

"People always seemed to pay attention to us. I have no idea why-- there was just a presence between the four people or something." (Jim Stapleton book)

"We felt we were ignored. We felt we were outsiders and then, when the hostility started about us getting gigs, it just reinforced that." (Jim Stapleton book)

"If there was a simple ethic for the band, it was that we want to be able to do whatever we want to do." (Jim Stapleton book)

"I want our music to come across like someone is whispering in your ear and going right inside your brain." (Jim Stapleton book)

"I have a hard time thinking of men trying to sing my songs, because I think my perspective is very much feminine... For me the idea of having a feminine perspective is a willingness to be vulnerable. It's very easy to cock-rock and posture. I can't help but wear my heart on my sleeve-- I'm like nervous endings.Thats just the way that I am and, to me, that's very female becayse it's not a male thing to do. A male thing to do would be to fuckin' posture." (Jim Stapleton book)

"I almost feel that we are more powerfull being accoustic than we are elctric." (Jim Stapleton book)

"The closer I get back to being who I really am, the stronger the music gets." (Jim Stapleton book)

"I recognize what the other three have to go through personally to be in this band and I'm gratefull that they've had enough faith in my vision to stick with me." (Jim Stapleton book)

"My role models were Judas Priest and Ozzy Ozbourne." (Jim Stapleton book)

"I applaud a band like Nirvana who say they are not going to play "Smells Like Teen Spirit," any more." (Jim Stapleton book)

"On an idealistic level, doing a double conceptual album is totally uncool, but I'm gonna pull it off." (Jim Stapleton book)

"I just want to be able to look back and think that as long as I was doing this, I did it the best I could." (Jim Stapleton book)

"I feel in my heart that I can obscure Siamese Dream with what comes next." (Jim Stapleton book)

"I've often felt that our B-sides show more of our true character than some of our albums." (Guitar School 2/97) "Just recording with James is a sexual experience. The way he presses 'record.' You just gotta see it!" (Guitar School 2/97)

"...I only like it if it has explosions. It doensn't matter what the mood is...." (Guitar School 2/97)

"Actually it's pretty cool that James did that track [...Said Sadly] with a guest artisit. I wish there was more of that in the Pumpkins. I was even kind of hoping that on the next album we could get a lot of people that we know to come in and play, just bits and parts. We know some people who are geniuses in what they do, but they haven't necessarily had mass acceptance. That doesn't make what they do any less relevant to me. It would just be really cool to try and get more people involved next time." (Guitar School 2/97)

On what he likes about Johnny Winter (Tribute to Johnny) "He fuckin' rocks, thats what. Few guitarisits have maintained as pure an approach to blues throughout the post Hendrix era." (Guitar School 2/97)

"The last time I actually played guitar with my father, I believe I was 19 or 20 years old, and so badly offended him that I haven't played with him since. I know I shouted something to the effect of, "It's major not minor!" And he told me to fuck off. And thats the last time I played with him. SO its a subject weve avoided for a while. But he'd come down to the studio to visit me. He was just listening to what I was doing. I knew I needed something for that part of the song [The Last Song]. So I thought, 'Oh, guitar solo." So I got my dad to play." (Guitar School 2/97)

"You're in Pumpkin World, buddy. Where nothing is as it seems." (Details 10/96)

"The Pumpkins love rock 'n' 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." (Details 10/96)

"It started on our own terms, and it will certainly end on them." (Details 10/96)

On their plans for the band after Jimmy's dismissal "We're just gonna throw out the rule book and start over." (Nick Wise book)

"I no longer feel the need to tourch my soul in public, because I don't think it's really worth it."(Jim Stapleton book)

"The simplest way that I can understand therepy is that we're born a certain way, we're taught to be something different, and we spend our whole lives trying to unravel it." (Jim Stapleton book)

"I was kind of a cosmic child. As a little kid, I remember wondering about God and the universe. I just remember reading bits of National Geographic magazine and watching shows on public television and being entranced by this thread of spirituality running throughout the world. There seemed to be this kind of secret chant for forgiveness and spiritual redemption. There was something mysteriously alluring about it, almost sensual." (Jim Stapleton book)

"My earliest memory is of feeling different. My parents told me that I wasn't like other children." (Jim Stapleton book) "My view of the world is always tempered by the fact that there are people who are less fortunate than I am." (Jim Stapleton book)

"...I mean, I'm cool with all my family now. That's all been overly ballyhooed. Unfortunately, it got turned into a kind of Gen X bullshit thing." (Guitar School 2/97)

"My mother came to a Smashing Pumpkins gig once, and I was wearing a dress. She was very upset. She said 'Everyone's gonna think you're a fag.' I said, 'We'll they already think I'm an asshole." (Details 10/96)

"My first real kiss was with somebody I really, really liked, and still like, and it was in my bedroom in the suburbs. There was no music playing, and it was after school, I think. When you're young like that, and especially being as weird as I was. I don't think that it was so much a romantic love as it was a love of the spirit and the connection that two people have at that age. We still have that same connection. It stopped articulating itself as a romance, but we're still really good friends. I love her very much." (Details 10/96)

"The way that I am, I still dont believe that anyone likes me. I still find it kind of shocking." (Details 10/96)

"This friend of mine asked me 'Do you really mean it when you sing "God is empty just like me"?', and 363 days out of the year, the answer is no. But those two days I feel it, I feel it pretty intensely."

"There is and will not be any public record on my marriage. That's one thing I have to draw the lines around."

"You know, my father's biggest complaint recently is people keep telling him he looks like me." "Me and my father have the same slouch and walk. I've been to family gatherings, after dinner, everyone goes into the living room, there will be eight people all sitting in the same Corgan way."

"Back in 1979, I was bigger than most kids by a lot. When I was 12 I led my baseball team in home runs. By the time I was 14, I had been totally passed up. That's when I turned to guitar."

"I was never violent, but I had that streak underneath me all along. People who have known me all my life, when they first saw us play, they were like "Holy fuck". because I'd turn into this beastie. They had never seen that side of me, but I knew it was there."

"I was a jock, but I wasn't on the sports team. I played guitar, but I didn't hang out with the stoners. I just couldn't hang in any way, and when you're young and you can't hang, you oppose. So I was anti-everything, fuck you all."

"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."

"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 wierd 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!"

"if you spin your love around, you may find your love is gone"

"In a weird kind of way, music has afforded me an idealism and perfectionism that i could never attain as me."

"the empty bodies stand at rest, casualties of their own flesh, afflicted by their dispossession"

"Love comes in colors I can't deny, All that matters is love"

"The killer in me is the killer in you" "Scarecrows and disease haunt us all"

"Say hello before you say goodbye"

"I am master of a nothing place, of recoil and grace"

"I am kremlin king of angels avenged, to destroy the end"

"Shave your head, wear a ZERO shirt. Take away your indentity. What do you have? You still have yourself"

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

"I hate how in magazine pictures, they always stick me somewhere in the back. It means they don't think I'm the cute one."

"My inspiration has been to translate what I see in total. People often ask me why I write sad songs, but life is sad and life is happy. So, it seems to me that I should write happy songs and sad songs"

"We don't make music for people to take drugs to, we make music for people to live their life."

"Well, we have brought certain things upon ourselves. I've certainly brought things upon us with my mouth."

"We had a wonderful time with this kind of grunge awareness, where suddenly rock was cool again. People wanted to head loud guitars. It was a great time, and I'm glad we were there. But the gimmick part has worn off."

"Starting out, I'd consider this astoundhing legacy of music, and being held to this great flame, I'd wonder; How do you do something better or new? Or, how do you not be so specific that you just appeal to five people?"

"Nobody nowhere understands anything about me and all my dreams"

"Can you hear us? Because if you can't we will turn it up till your ears bleed nascent approving harmony"

"We're the worst band in America...that makes us the best."

"For like, two years every interview was, and occasionally still is, ' Don't you guys hate each other?' "

"You can stop throwing cups now. The joke is over.....Stoppen zie throwing zie cuppen." -My Favourite Quote

"I actually play the Chamberlain, the Retzke, the Iha, the Corgan, the mouth organ and a nose flute. I've been known to play the saw, but only when tipsy."

"I've studied Bach, and let me tell you, he could cut a rug."

"Well, I had this really traumatic experience when I was fifteen. I got shrunk and I had to live in a thimble, and let me tell you that it was hard. The food was plentiful and all, but the attack of the rats got to be a bit much. It came out of the experiences of that time." ~On how he got the idea for the song "Stumbleine"

"Tell me tell me what you're after, i just wanna get there faster"

"Come save me from this awful sound of nothing"

"Can anybody hear me? I just want to be me"

"The weird nihilism that permeates Mellon Collie is extremely relevant to what's going on right now. So many kids are intelligent and articulate, but they don't know what to do with themselves."

"We can look you in the eye and talk to you about life, heart, love rock'n'roll, whatever, but we do not have the moral authority to tell people how to vote or what to do with their bodies. We are just a rock band."

"We've come to the conclusion that we're exactly where we want to be. If you're going to put us onstage for 90 minutes of three hours, we are going to give you more than anyone else, and we are going to kick your ass harder than anyone else. You can laugh at us, poke fingers at us, but for what it is, we're as good as it's going to get."

"We are a bit preposterous, but we're also a really special band."

"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 don't even want to discuss how many people told me that making an album with 28 songs at this point in our career was crazy. Everyone, including the people at our record label, wanted us to just take a nice, safe path, and produce another album like Siamese Dreams. My attitude was just the opposite. Thankfully, it hasn't turned out to badly."

"Our concerts have it's moments when it's stupid, where it's funny, little cheerleading moments, and there's moments when we are just totally crushing the audience."

"Now we've come to the realization that we don't have to live in a virtual state of anarchy in order to make the music happen."

"There's a lot of chemistry in the band that the outside world could never witness. In our band, D'Arcy is the moral conscience- it's really hard to do something if D'Arcy thinks its fucked."

"The music is all we care about - so if that's bad, then we're bad"

"The world is not set up for a band like the Smashing Pumpkins---it's set up for bands who can play the angle better."

"When you move artistically, the natural inclination is to denounce everything that's gone before."

"I'm about to take the stupid shirt off, but the band won't let me."

"I don't believe in God, I don't believe in America, I don't believe in rock 'n' roll, I only believe in....me."

"The last time we played outside, we were seven." [At the Bridge School Benefit, 1997]

"At times when I'm at a loss, I force myself to remember that music is not the only thing that exists in this world. Sometimes, you just have to put the guitar down, instead of throwing it against the wall."

"We don't like to be pissed on.. would you?"

"Music is 99% of my life, but I know I need a break. Besides, if you give people too much, they start to not want it. We need to restrain ourselves."

"Yes, this is the final MCIS show. We'd like to wish you luck in the future in rock and roll, because we certaintly won't have much to do with it. Now we'd like to take you back to when we liked to rock, this is Rhinoceros."

"Thanks for sticking around. I'm glad to see some of the posers have left, gotta go run home and see whats on MTV."

"I took my love to the edge of a cliff, the edge of no where. It was about 400 feet up so I thought should I? Should I just push her over the fucking cliff ? No, too easy, they'd find my handprints on her back."

"The real lesson I've learned from playing so much on the road is that it does everyone a disservice if the band is just, interested in the music it's playing and it's like anything, if you do it over and over and over again, It just loses its brilliance or brightness or something. So we try to find ways in the songs to keep our minds in 'em. So, that, you know, we're not just out there to jam. We're not the Grateful Dead, but, we've kind of opened our songs a little bit for a little more interpretation. I really think it has made our shows a lot better, and I think it gives audiences a chance to see more of our personality then to be like Rush, and just get up there and play the album. Cause I think in the end, that's all people really want to see. I mean, they have the album, they know the songs. They're looking for some other element. At our shows, they see the meanie personality."

"We are the Smashing fucking Pumpkins and will always be the Smashing Pumpkins. Why? Because we got the power. We got the fucking power."

"Well, usually I wait until the end of the show to apologize for sucking, but I'd like to take this oppertunity to say that we suck, so sorry. I guess what we need to do is play some Stone Temple Pilots or Bush."

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

"I'm looking forward to some kind of well-coordinated Floyd future, perhaps even a floating pig of our own."

"I guess we should apologize now for making you all miss the Super Bowl. If it makes you feel any better, in the second quarter the players decided that they were all going to choose the path of non-violence and they all gave up football. So the game was suspended anyway so you're not missing anything."

"I never seemed to fit in. But it made me try to strive for things ten times harder."

"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 forget about us."

"Would I be in these silver pants?!?!"

"I wish we knew 'Enter Sandman'"

"Certainly the media saturation is way worse. Now you turn on the T.V. and there's fashion and culture and news aimed directly at 16-year olds. I've met kids who get laid at 10 and 12. I didn't lose my virginity until I was 19. Kids are acting grown- up, but they're not grown up inside."

"Well, I have autographed pretty much everything...casts, breasts, cars...you name it."

"I don't slouch, I have a guitar hunch."

"You can't out solo Jimi Hendrix, you can't out god Led Zepplin, and you can't out pop Iggy Pop."

"People act like Nirvana invented grunge, they just took it and personified it."

"Did anyone see us here in Rochester in 1991? I'd like to thank you for coming to that show. I realize I'm 6 years to late. You know you're all standing here like you're waiting for something, what is it it? (in mocking voice) I paid $ 25 to see a concert and they just talked the whole time, I wanted to hear that god damn Today song and they didn't even fuckin' play it. GOD DAMN IT! (normal voice) I know, we're so difficult. Thank you very much."

"Now I want to take you back to a time before grunge. Yes, there was a time before grunge. When we played this song people used to call it grunge and it used to really piss me off. Then again, people used to think we were from Seattle, which of course we're from Up State New York. Do you want to hear it? It's a long fuckin' song. Yea, I got all fuckin' night to Mr. For those of you who have never heard our first record, this is called Siva."

"Somethings wrong, the tower is gonna fall down so if we don't come back it's not our fault. They're telling us to get the fuck off the stage. Remember your safety is our concern."

"As soon as the band finishes taking their drugs, they'll be right out, you can of course go if you want. After this the show gets really phsychadelic, you probably won't like it anyway. We don't play anything you know, just warning you. Would anyone like to have a sing along? You guys sing one of my songs and I'll just sing along. I'll give you a beat. 'Today is the greatest..' I'm all by myself."

"Well, you've heard the rumors, now you know. The band doesn't love me. They aren't coming back out. Ha, I'm just teasing."

"A great rock riff gets you about 60 seconds, then you've got to have everything else to back it up."

"We make our own little brand of music, and the more out we go the more people seem to respond. I don't think our fans want us to be like everybody else."

"Should I ignore what I feel and go out and sing Gerry and the Pacemakers songs, because thats what people want to hear? Screw everybody. I'm going to stand up and sing my blues, and if I'm gonna go down, I'm going down with my own songs."

"You don't choose to write a song about pain, it just happens."

"Everybody turn to the person beside you and say, "I don't know you, but I like you, and if I knew your parents, I'd like them too.'' ( 7/7/96 Hampton Coliseum, VA)

"6'4" when i stand up straight, 6'3" when I slouch."

"I know what it's like to be 15-years-old and live in white suburban America."

"This is a song from that Sleepless in Seattle Movie. Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks, It's really beautiful. This is called the 'Wind Beneath my Wings' " (plays Drown)

"I wrote this song when I was about 8 years old, living in India at the time. I was called Big Mac. It's called Raga in E-minor." (plays Siva)

"What goes on between a person and himself and the universe is their own damned business. There's no way we could ever cheapen it."

"As a child I learned that it was more advantageous to be this creation than it was to be who I really am. But my personality is so strong that it kind of bubbled out from underneath, and it was tough to distinguish who was the faker and who was real."

"I wish from Day One, people could would have looked at me and said, 'You're all right, come on, join the team,' but it's never been that way with me. I don't know why."

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

"Watch me death defy..... defy my life"

"I just can't stand to see Sesame Street characters disgraced... I of course was molested by Big Bird himself. When I saw that flying at me it brought back a lot of painful memories... I won't even tell you what he did... but he does have that long beak...and that's what this song is about."

"Thanks for being and thanks for listening and thanks for being angry and sad all at the same time. Life is everything and nothing all at once -if i may filanthropize-- and we hope we mean those things to you.. special thanks to everyone for their continued support and a fuck you to those who will never understand love, peace, empathy, desire, mischief, and gladness"

"We're not getting any prettier."

"We'll get other alternative bands to set up their own theaters. We'll have like the Urge Theater and you know, Hole can have like a strip mall." [referring to a Branson/Nashville type set up]

"The whole sickness of alternative music is that they're no different from the Paula Abduls of the world.They sit in their little castles and say, ' Well,you're not cool enough,and you're not this enough.' I'ts never based on, ' Is your band good or bad?' It's, ' Are you politically correct? Who do you hang out with?' It's so easy to get caught up in the small,bitchy,bickering world of the music industry and lose sight of the fact that it's still about [this]: you make a record and people like it or they don't like it;they put it on and it makes them feel good,and it makes them love their boyfriend or girlfriend more,or whatever."

"I hate being cold. It reminds me of when I got punished when I was a kid and got sent down to the basement. "

"I feel like my time on this earth is severly limited, and I'm going to exploit it for all it's worth." "Every pillar that's set up is meant to be knocked over. All you have to be afraid of is what people are gonna think."

"Why must the girls make the boys cry?"

"I hate myself, I hate my album. But I always go through that. There's no getting around it. You go home, listen to it, you get mad at God, you hate yourself, you eat a lot of ravioli and sleep a lot. I swear, that's how it works. Then, after a week, you start to return to earth."

"Smashing Pumpkins has never been a band about hit songs."

"We don't have a production company. We have a record label."

"At this point in time I actually don't know who I am..."

"Beyond my hopes there are no feelings."

"We're happy to be part of the oncoming American invasion, landing on your shores immediately."

"All we need is creativity."

"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."

"Everything about life makes me lonely."

"All I ever wanted was everything and all I've gotten is shit."

"There's no dagger small enough to pierce your heart."

"We're the happy Smashing Pumpkins."

"We weren't like mates who decided to form a band. The other three met me because they were interested in being in the band hat I was starting."

"Just let me make this analogy. You want to go to the circus and to get into the circus it costs you five...pence. So you stand in line, you don't have five pence but you really want to go to the circus. Someone comes along and says well, I'll take you into the circus and I'll pay the five pence. But you got to pay me back later. So they take you in the circus and take you out. Well, oh, when are you going to pay me back? I don't know, I'll get around to it sooner or later. That's the story of the band."

"We're too serious. We're assholes and we all hate each other."

"Hey, being The Smashing Pumpkins is not so fucking bad. We make alot of people happy."

"The whole point of The Smashing Pumpkins was always to blow everybody away, so it didn't make sense to be funny at the same time."

"I use music as some kind of wierd salvation to get away from my life, but eventually you have to live a fucking life, or you're going to shoot yourself."

"Being in that band (the Marked) taught me everything I had gotten into music for was total garbage. The whole sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll thing. It was shallow; everything the pumpkins are not."

"I usually lay in bed for three days. That's pretty much the typical post-tour mode."

"I'm a martyr. It's part of my insanity."

"I really think I can pull it (a double cd) off. Nobody's got the balls to take the pretentious 'I dare you' move. If I'm going to do it, now is the fucking time.

"People think that somehow I enjoy being this unhappy person. I don´t. I never fit in, and I never fit in because of the person I am or the person I´m not. Deep down inside I wish I could be just a normal, stupid kid."....

"we weren't the kind of band who wrote the songs as a jamming band, so to open it up like we have is kind of a new thing for us."....Billy, On the edge Dec. 91

"it's made my life a lot easier because i don't have to get up and pretend i'm something i'm not"....Billy, The Edge Dec. 91

"I think it's important that a band doesn't get applaud happy"....Billy the edge 91

"It's THE Smashing Pumpkins. That was my stupid idea."....Billy, Chicago Sports Channel, April 1997

"No, the name was before there was even a band because i used to tell people because they would alwyas say 'well if you're going to form a band what's gonna be the name?' so i just made up this kind of Fanciful name as a joke and it stuck"....Billy on Chicago Sports Channel, Aril 1997 on the meaning of the name

"it's my girlfriends, i had to pry it out of her to use it for the album"....Billy on the Sacred Heart on the back of Gish

"Well, when i was 20 and I met D'Arcy, my whole thing was music, music, music, 24-7. And i couldn't understand why D'Arcy wasn't music, music, music, 24-7. D'Arcy was like, 'I have a fucking life. It can't be that way."....Billy

James: Good evening Oakland! 
Billy: James, were not in Oakland. 
 James: Good evening San Francisco! 
Billy: We're not in San Francisco either. (to the crowd:) See, 
there is something many of you may not know about James. 
He's a robot, and when we're on tour, we kinda forgot to reprogram 
him sometimes so he gets confused easy. That's also why he smells
so bad since we can't give him a shower....."
Billy & James at the December 16, 1996 in San Jose, CA