Billy Corgan Quotes

I've come to realize that the more I censor myself, the less people relate to me.

I never try to be too sexy. People know when you're not comfortable and trying to be sexy.

You can't respect yourself if you're afraid to be who you are.

I am not good at first or second impressions, and you have to spend some time with me to know me. Also, I don't want to put my best foot forward and prove something, as that is not me. I would rather be me and have you like me for who I am, instead of being someone else.

When you stop caring what people think, you lose your capacity for connection. When you're defined by it, you lose our capacity for vulnerability.

One of the hardest things to do is to be present and open and clear about who you are and what you stand for. We all have issues with that.

The ideas I'm working with are ideas I'm committed to. I don't know how to soft-shoe them. I don't know how to make them more palpable. I just never knew how to be one of those girls. I wish I knew how to be that sometimes, but I don't know how to be that way.

So few people are truly themselves when they're in the spotlight.

The more successful I become, the more I want to remain like me, with my defects and insecurities.

The truth is that we don't need everyone to like us; we need a few people to love us. Because what's better than being roundly liked is being fully known - an impossibility both professionally and personally if you're so busy being likable that you forget to be yourself.

For a long time I tried to manage an honesty and openness about my personal life because I'm human and I'm normal - well, semi-normal.

One of the things I did when I discovered this huge importance of being vulnerable is very happily moved away from the shame research, because that's such a downer, and people hate that topic. It's not that vulnerability is the upside, but it's better than shame, I guess.

Feeling comfortable in my own skin has never been easy for me.

There's my personal life, my sensitive side, and then me as a performer, sexy and energised and fun.

When I was younger, I was afraid to be myself.

For what is a man, what has he got? If not himself, then he has naught. To say the things he truly feels, and not the words of one who kneels.

I've learned that to expose yourself, to reveal yourself is a test of your humanness.

Never be ashamed of what or how you feel... just be honest.

It's taken me years to embrace the softer elements of who I am and let that shine some.

I think all jocks have a sensitive side. It's just, will they show it to anybody? Will they let their guard down and stop being tough and the cool jock guy around their friends, or just relax? I don't know if it's best to say opening up, but just relax and really say what you're actually thinking, and not what you think people want to hear.

I want people to see that I'm a real person, I overreact, I cry, I'm emotional. If I come across as perfect and in control, that wouldn't be who I really am.

I've spent a lot of time self-reflecting. Especially as an actor, you have to know yourself really well in order to do things effectively. And when I dress, I dress for me. I don't dress to make other people think that I'm this way or that way.

I think my very best piece of advice is be yourself.

I'm not fake, and I don't want to mislead people about who I am. I can be serious, too, and I cry a lot. It's just who I am.

My goal is to make space for my selfhood. All of it. All of me, not just the parts I like or think that others like but all of it.