Quotes by Marilyn Manson

"Finding someone who's willing to drown with you creates a situation where you no longer want to drown."

"We live in a society of victimization, where people are much more comfortable being victimized than actually standing up for themselves."

"When all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed."

"Sometimes you feel awkward being what you're best at, you feel like you have to be something new."

"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 what you do is being threatened as a profession, that could be scary. But that's the same reason why I walked out on stage many times after receiving death threats. I couldn't live without doing what I wanted to do. So at the same time I have to be willing to die for it."

"My dad loves what I do and I support my parents financially because they didn't have a job that gave them a pension."

"To admit you want to have a comeback means you have to admit you weren't what you were supposed to be. You dropped below your own standard."

"The time that people aren't expecting what's going to happen, I find that's the best time to really cause the damage that needs to be done."

"Music is the strongest form of magic."

"I can't satisfy myself with just trying to tie all of my imagination into music, especially when music is not appreciated as an art form as much as it used to be."

"I don't want to feel like I've matured. That's a stupid word that I never want to use."

"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."

"There's no reason to change what you are, but if you're not being you, then you need to acknowledge that."

"I think art is the only thing that's spiritual in the world. And I refuse to forced to believe in other people's interpretations of God. I don't think anybody should be. No one person can own the copyright to what God means."

"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."

"Everything I was afraid of when I was growing up, I've become. I've taken on my nightmares, like the devil and the end of the world, and I've become those things."

"I don't say things to be offensive; I say things because they're funny to me. It amuses me."

"The burden of originality is one that most people don't want to accept. They'd rather sit in front of the TV and let that tell them what they're supposed to like, what they're supposed to buy, and what they're supposed to laugh at."

"As a kid I had buck teeth and braces and acne. I hated what I saw. I'm still not comfortable, but that's why I change and adapt the way I look."

"I was married to someone who wanted me to change. Become more adult, more responsible. I began not to like myself, not like what I do. I lost my identity. Everything began collapsing around me."

"When I finish a picture I don't show it to anyone if I feel it's not good enough yet. I've learnt to listen to my partners and my friends. For me it's the biggest success if they like it."

"My goal isn't to make money, it's to try and survive and make a point."

"Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised."

"Marriage changes everything."

"Growing up going to Christian school and the concept that you're born a sinner and you don't really have a choice to change who you are has been hammered into my head and created the entire reason why I made art and made a band and made records called 'Antichrist Superstar.'"

"Sometimes I wonder if I'm a character being written, or if I'm writing myself."

"If one more 'journalist' makes a cavalier statement about me and my band, I will personally or with my fans' help, greet them at their home and discover just how much they believe in their freedom of speech."

"The advantage of the internet is that it has taken away the charade of politics. China has heard of democracy and people know about certain concepts they wouldn't have previously."

"I am drawn to women who are independent and creative, which is problematic because it's a struggle, a competition of careers. There's jealousy."

"In any story, the villain is the catalyst. The hero's not a person who will bend the rules or show the cracks in his armor. He's one-dimensional intentionally, but the villain is the person who owns up to what he is and stands by it."

"Art gives me the freedom I don't have when I make music."

"What I know is my music gets blamed for school shootings."

"If Satan wasn't around, churches would go out of business."

"All the seven deadly sins are man's true nature. To be greedy. To be hateful. To have lust. Of course, you have to control them, but if you're made to feel guilty for being human, then you're going to be trapped in a never-ending sin-and-repent cycle that you can't escape from."

"Leave me in a room with some crayons and I'll draw on the wall."

"My first memories of religion were being taken to Episcopal church. My father was Catholic, but my mother, I believe, was Episcopal. So I sort of veered off into the watered-down version of Catholicism."

"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 decided to make music again at a time when I couldn't have had more obstacles."

"Marilyn Monroe wasn't even her real name, Charles Manson isn't his real name, and now, I'm taking that to be my real name. But what's real? You can't find the truth, you just pick the lie you like the best."

"When you're taught to love everyone, to love your enemies, then what value does that place on love?"

"I'm absolutely not looking for someone who agrees with me about everything or someone who wants to please me by believing what I believe."