Top 200 Billy Corgan Quotes (2025 Update)
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101. “We don’t make music for people to take drugs to, we make music for people to live their life.”

— Billy Corgan

102. “I’ve been too productive for too long, and despite what anybody wants to strip away from me, I am influential. I am.”

— Billy Corgan

103. “I’m attacking the pomposity that says this is more valuable than that. I’m sick of that.”

— Billy Corgan

104. “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.”

— Billy Corgan

105. “Indie world won’t have me, and mainstream world treats me like an alien, but here I am still floating between these two worlds.”

— Billy Corgan

106. “I’m not interested in pop art.”

— Billy Corgan

107. “What bothers me is when music becomes entertainment. Of course, music is supposed to be entertaining, but go back to any period of time – music had a cultural significance on different levels, whether it was folk music, it was the news of the village, or it had to do with the rites of passage.”

— Billy Corgan

108. “My father was a guitar player, and I was raised with a super high standard of what good guitar playing was.”

— Billy Corgan

109. “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.”

— Billy Corgan

110. “It’s important for people to talk and get beyond the wall of Facebook and social media.”

— Billy Corgan

111. “Most of my arguments with musicians through the years have had more to do with their attitude about music, or their attitude about their own lives, or their personal responsibility. Music has never really been the big centerpiece of the fight.”

— Billy Corgan

112. “It was shocking to see Nirvana play, because it was like, “Here’s this little guy with a monster-guitar sound.” And it was heavier than Black Sabbath. That was shocking.”

— Billy Corgan

113. “Being in a rock band is just an excuse not to get a job.”

— Billy Corgan

114. “I didn’t find Jesus. He’s been there the whole time.”

— Billy Corgan

115. “I often have deer on my property and there’s a fox and owls. You’re not going to see that in the city.”

— Billy Corgan

116. “Most great records really start with the drums.”

— Billy Corgan

117. “I’ve rarely done anything that’s overtly self-destructive without consciously knowing what I’m doing. And then of course, the astute journalist jumps forward and says, “Why are you being calculated?” Calculated seems to assume a sinister intent. My intent is always for artistic effect.”

— Billy Corgan

118. “People act like Nirvana invented grunge; they just took it and personified it.”

— Billy Corgan

119. “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.”

— Billy Corgan

120. “Most people don’t know that wrestling came out of the circus.”

— Billy Corgan

121. “I wanted more than life could ever grant.”

— Billy Corgan

122. “When alternative music – which is supposed to be the standard-bearer of where white rock is headed – becomes either too cute or too manufactured, that’s just really not good.”

— Billy Corgan

123. “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.”

— Billy Corgan

124. “Even if you don’t believe in God, exploring fully the idea of a god or gods should pose no threat to you.”

— Billy Corgan

125. “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.”

— Billy Corgan

126. “In our lives in a lot of ways it’s all about fake. You’ve got people wanting things for fake reasons.”

— Billy Corgan

127. “I had such a big mouth for so long that it doesn’t faze anybody anymore.”

— Billy Corgan

128. “If I have resistance to something, it means there’s something wrong. The resistance to me is a sign of fear.”

— Billy Corgan

129. “Music is supposed to be interwoven into the fabric of society; it is not supposed to be a plaything that is there to serve the population’s titillation of the moment.”

— Billy Corgan

130. “I like my home and I like the nature.”

— Billy Corgan

131. “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.”

— Billy Corgan

132. “This is not a reaction against a negative world. It’s a response to a negative world.”

— Billy Corgan

133. “What most people do is try to find a comfortable persona that they’re in alignment with and the public likes and appreciates them for.”

— Billy Corgan

134. “I reached a point in my life where I felt like I was living through some old character.”

— Billy Corgan

135. “My version, of course, is not this flag-waving, let’s all get on the Jesus train and ride out of hell. I’m not that kind of guy. It’s an embrace that life is good, worth living and yeah, it’s not easy, but there are more pluses than minuses.”

— Billy Corgan

136. “You have to keep adapting to the times. If you kind of go with it, it can kind of fun.”

— Billy Corgan

137. “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.”

— Billy Corgan

138. “The difficulty, if you’re in the world – and this is for anybody – is the eventual disappointment that comes with having to meet other versions of reality. Imposed systems that ask you to compromise or sacrifice things which you consider holy or sacred.”

— Billy Corgan

139. “Wrestling is one of the last truly rebellious American things left.”

— Billy Corgan

140. “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.”

— Billy Corgan

141. “In my Corgan brain, I’ve decided it’s almost as simple as ‘All you need is love.’ Almost.”

— Billy Corgan

142. “You’ve got to be ready to be in a great relationship.”

— Billy Corgan

143. “Not let the child run the circus, just have that child be the source of the creative voice.”

— Billy Corgan

144. “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.”

— Billy Corgan

145. “There’s nothing more satisfying than going to a market and meeting the person who picked the strawberries, or it’s their farm that the strawberries came from, and giving them a fair value in exchange for what they’re giving you.”

— Billy Corgan

146. “I went to see a shaman. He put his hands on me, and I cried like a baby for an hour.”

— Billy Corgan

147. “I look at other members of my generation who have basically done one thing, and one thing well, and have been handsomely rewarded for it.”

— Billy Corgan

148. “It’s wonderful to read interviews by old blues guys – they talk about all their influences, they talk about who taught them how to play, and who they saw, and how they were determined to play that way.”

— Billy Corgan

149. “In a weird kind of way, music has afforded me an idealism and perfectionism that I could never attain as me.”

— Billy Corgan

150. “I don’t have a problem with ‘Idol’ or ‘X Factor,’ I have a problem with when those things are not given the proper contextual hue.”

— Billy Corgan