Tobias Forge Quotes

The best thing about this band is I'm the leader!

In Nine Inch Nails, I've been the guy calling the shots since inception. I'd gotten used to that.

Music is all about leadership and there ain't really a lot of leaders.

I'm not a great band member; I'm more of a band leader.

I've definitely gotten to the point where we get to the venue, and people know that I'm in charge of the band.

I write the music, produce it and the band plays within the parameters that I set.

Bad leaders believe that they have to project control at all times.

I run a tight ship, but I try and make it seem like I'm not doing that at all.

Why do you always insist on playing while I'm trying to conduct?

On the other hand, when I give it closer thought, I realize I'm not enough of a dictator to conduct an orchestra because it requires a pretty awful person. When you read these biographies of famous conductors, they are all awful people who fail in their private relationships.

The people always have some champion who they set over them and nurse into greatness …. This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when he first appears, he is a protector.

A band is not a democracy: It's show business.

With Dream Theater, every creative aspect of the group went through me. I oversaw it all from top to bottom.

I've played Frankie Cosmos shows where the promoter or whoever sees that I'm the lead singer, and then they go up to David, the bassist, and are like, 'So, do we pay you?' And he's like, 'No, you pay her; she's the boss.' Those are moments where I'm just like, 'I'm clearly in charge.'

The only place where you can be a dictator and still be loved is on the movie set

I always used to associate good directors as being ones who are totally extreme and have an answer for everything and there are no loose ends.

I am not blaming those who are resolved to rule, only those who show an even greater readiness to submit.

Power educates the potentate.

The answer is, of course, that it would be best to be both loved and feared. But since the two rarely come together, anyone compelled to choose will find greater security in being feared than in being loved.

I may command where I adore.

To know the pains of power, we must go to those who have it; to know its pleasures, we must go to those who are seeking it: the pains of power are real, its pleasures imaginary.

I was only an aspiring dictator. I was never a real dictator.

The hand that controls the supper dish rules the world!

Influence is not government.

Men live in glad obedience to the masters they believe in, or they live in a frictional opposition to the master they wish to undermine.