I don't try to be bad as much as I just am by nature.
— Marilyn Manson
I'm completely unlike a lot of other performers in the past who have been forgiven or come to terms with the real world because they tell everyone their performance is 'just a show.' And so, people say, 'Oh, it's OK then. We don't care. He's not really a bad person.' It's not just a show for me. It's my life.
There's nothing that anyone could say about me that would hurt my feelings.
If I think I weigh too much, I'll lose weight; if my hair looks stupid, I'll cut it. I guess I'm my harshest critic. I'm not easily satisfied.
When I was stalking my special lady friend on MySpace, people would always say, 'Is this really Marilyn Manson or some kind of psycho?' And I'm like, 'Both.'
I feel like I've dreamed half of my life that hasn't happened yet, so a lot of times I'm going along, and I do stuff, and I know that I've done it. I have deja vus more than I have regular experiences. If half of your day is a deja vu, then you start to wonder, 'What is real and what isn't?'
I like Kylie Minogue sometimes - I like a lot of unusual stuff... I don't know - I like Justin Timberlake over Lady Gaga, just musically.
America puts killers on the cover of 'TIME' magazine, giving them as much notoriety as our favorite movie stars.
I don't think I have ever tried to create things to encourage people to hurt others, or themselves.
In music, you feel a connection to the voice and think about the person behind it. In art that's secondary.
When I turned about 14, I developed a friendship with this guy whose mom was the secretary to Ernest Angley, the faith healer, who's very popular in the Midwest. He had a television show, and he was sort of like Liberace mixed with Jerry Falwell - very glitzy, very high-tech.
There's just no great rock albums anymore. There's a lot of rock music out there, but it's very bland and disposable.
Don't ever empty the bucket of mystery. Never let people define what you do. It's not about zigging when you should zag. It's not about doing something unprecedented and unpredictable. It's just about never being a word, or something that is not in the process of transformation.
I care about the people I know and love the most, but I also care about what the people I don't know think in the sense that I want them to think and understand me in a certain way. I don't base my life around either one, and I don't change the way I live to please either set of people, but I do care.
If you lose emotion, and you gain it back, you realise that hate and love are very important to distribute properly. So I'm not going to waste any kind of emotion on things that aren't related to me.
I'm not going to be some kind of PC, tree-hugger.
It's better to use a curse word than to hurt somebody else, I find.
Anybody who does not evolve can become a self-parody. I have to evolve on a daily basis just to keep my own interest in what I do.
Finding someone who's willing to drown with you creates a situation where you no longer want to drown.
There was definitely a lack of any sort of villain in the Clinton era, which is why, when Columbine happened, it was easy to pick on me. My face was around, and it made good TV.
I've never treated anyone in my band like they're not on the same level as me. I'm not that kind of person.
I like to make people think differently than they did before I walked in the room.
I pity anybody who has to spend a day with me.
I like to be unhinged; I like to be unpredictable. I like to make people worry that worse things can happen whenever I go out to a restaurant or act in a movie.
I'm not a masochist. I'm simply into trying to enjoy what I do, because otherwise there's no point.
You can find inspiration for man's behaviour wherever you look.
My art is not limited to the songs I create but also to the reaction it creates. I like to sit back and look at the whole thing as if it's a tornado that I'm controlling. It's creating chaos. When you create chaos, ideas are turned upside down, and everybody looks at things in a different way.
If you're gonna pretend to be something, then you have to at least live up to what it is.
Videos have to go hand in hand with your music, so that's why, ultimately, they should be created by the artist. And if they're not, it doesn't really add up to me.
People expect me to me a 'shock rocker,' but there's nothing you can do anymore to be shocking.
The first time I performed musically, I threw up.
Sacrifice to me is something you do without expecting something in return.
Sometimes you feel awkward being what you're best at, you feel like you have to be something new.
I don't encourage people to choose any sort of sexuality.
For me, art is supposed to be a question mark.
Jesus is a half-naked guy, hanging, nailed to a cross, and then people wear that around their neck, and then those are the people that are upset about violence in movies.
Watching movies is my one distraction.
I think it's the pain and suffering that drive you to become an artist. The art itself should be the pain, sort of exorcising every demon and making you feel like you're a person that matters.
My father had a very violent temper, and he was never home. So I was kind of a mama's boy.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm a character being written, or if I'm writing myself.
From Jesse James to Charles Manson, the media, since their inception, have turned criminals into folk heroes.
I think people have to take responsibility for their own actions.
I think confidence is the most appealing quality in any human being or any artist; that's what really attracts us to people.
Art gives people a reason to be alive.
My feelings are, if you're gonna lead a rock n' roll lifestyle, don't let it affect your work. I know I can stay up all night and still come in the next day and write a song, and nothing will stop me from doing it. I expect the same from everyone else.
I don't have anything against Simon Cowell and 'The X Factor.'
Yes, I'm reckless and sometime express no concern for my own well being, and I express a misanthropic view of the world, but to have an opinion, you can't be a nihilist.
I wish that my life could be like the movies, like 'Bonnie and Clyde' or 'The Hunger' or 'Harold and Maude.' And... it can be! It maybe just takes somebody else who is as fearless as you. It takes a person who will not hesitate.
When you want to die, you at least have a goal. You're aiming for something. It's not a good goal, but at least you want something. And you've got anger and fear, but at least you're feeling something.
There's a certain group of people who are always going to dislike me and disagree with whatever I say.
