Billy Corgan Quotes

It is when I am working that the real me comes out - that is when I am the most real and honest.

My songs are about who I am.

The artist is very lucky, because in an art form that's spontaneous like jazz, that's when you really see your true self. And that's why, when I put down my instrument, that's when the challenge starts, because to learn how to be that kind of human being at that level that you are when you're playing - that's the key, that's the hard part.

They're not prosthetics. They're my bones. They come out when I’m inspired. They've always been inside of me, but I have been waiting for the right time to reveal to the universe who I truly am.

If I walk away from music, I walk away from myself.

All that I am is me. So I'm not really a poet or a writer or an actor or an activist; I'm me, and these are things that I do.

I think I'm always adopting a persona. That's how I look at pop music. I don't feel like I have to be myself. I feel like I have to be true to myself, but I don't have to show an exact picture of who I am.

Failure is fantastic, because you meet yourself and get to know your limitations. This is how I express myself, and I can't do it any other way.

As far as writing, it's grown because I've really grown comfortable with who I am.

The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you need to do, in order to have what you want.

I guess trying to throw my body into the guitar is so natural for me that I don't even know how to explain it. I can't imagine life without it.

I do so play an instrument! I play air! I play the air with my fingers, and I'm in touch with the deepest emotions within. It took me a while to learn that whatever I feel like doing is the right thing. If I want to play an invisible instrument, I will.

How I set myself apart is by creating the sort of real and honest music, which is who I'm also trying to be.

When you grow up in the music industry, trying to be Britney Spears because that's what sells records and then you realize, 'All I have to do is be myself? I should have thought of that a long time ago,' it feels good to have success come from what's actually inside of you.

Music is a vital part of my life, and it has been since I was a kid. It helped me find my identity as a person, it helped me find my identity as an artist, and it helped me get in touch with emotions that I didn't know I had.

I knew that I had to find my own voice, both figuratively and literally.

At the typewriter you find out who you are.

If there's one theme in all my work, it's about authenticity and self-expression. It's the idea that some things are, in some real sense, really you - or express what you and others aren't.

I've realized the person that I've always been and this gift that I've always had just had to be brought to light. It surprised me the most that being more who I am and not who I thought I had to be would make me successful.

My music is the spiritual expression of what I am - my faith, my knowledge, my being.

The broken heart on my right finger represents me before I figured out who I was, and the full heart on my left is because I'm left-handed, I use that to write my music, and my music helped me obtain my direction in life.

I think songwriting was the biggest way that I found my identity.

You can be whoever you want to be when you are writing songs.

Every single day, I wake up and take a glimpse of where I am now compared to where I was before, and the work that we have all put in to be in this space. I think of that, and being able to express myself through my art and show up and be present - that's activism, advocacy, and artistry in itself.

Be stupid, be dumb, be funny, if that's who you are. Don't try to be someone that society wants you to be; that's stupid. So be yourself.