“Out here on the perimeter there are no stars. Out here we is stoned. Immaculate.”

A person has to be willing to give up everything—not just wealth. All the bullshit he’s been taught—all society’s brainwashing.

All the poems have wolves in them. All but one. The most beautiful one of all. She dances in a ring of fire and throws off the challenge with a shrug.

I’m kind of hooked to the game of art and literature; my heroes are artists and writers.

How can I set free anyone who doesn’t have the guts to stand up alone and declare his own freedom?

We felt comfortable in our skins, enjoyed the news that our senses released to us, admired our dirt, cultivated our scars, and could not comprehend this unworthiness.

There are subtle ways to punish a person for daring to feel. You see that everyone around you has destroyed his true feeling nature. You imitate what you see.

The only solution is to confront them – confront yourself – with the greatest fear imaginable.

A man searching for paradise lost can seem a fool to those who never sought the other world.

All our songs are about love, travel and death.

Love cannot save you from your own fate.

Rather than starting inside, I start outside and reach the mental through the physical.

Most people love you for who you pretend to be….To keep their love, you keep pretending – performing.

Time to live, time to lie, time to laugh, and time to die. Take it easy baby. Take it as it comes.

People are strange when you’re a stranger.

Let’s just say I was testing the bounds of reality. I was curious to see what would happen. That’s all it was curiosity.

Everybody insists that freedom is what they want the most, the most sacred and precious thing a man can possess. But that’s bullshit! People are terrified to be set free – they hold on to their chains.

It started getting debilitating. I enjoy my music a lot better than my drugs.

The Medicare Part D prescription drug bill, which might be the most corrupt piece of legislation in history, was a huge giveaway of taxpayer funds to the big pharmaceutical companies.

All the perfect drugs and superheroes wouldn’t be enough to bring me back to zero.

In the ’70s, everybody thought drugs were just good times. People didn’t really know about drug addiction, or that such a thing existed.

When I grew up in the ’70s I thought you had to take drugs. It was almost like I didn’t think you had a choice.

Everybody kind of understands, Oh yeah you take drugs and it does something to your brain and then you can’t stop.

I feel what is really great about Pusher is that it wasn’t about drugs and guns and strippers. That was just all circumstantial.

If you decide you want to change your life around, it doesn’t matter where you came from, what you did.