I think there's something strangely musical about noise.

I've become impossible, holding on to when everything seemed to matter more.

And when the day arrives I'll become the sky and I'll become the sea and the sea will come to kiss me for I am going home. Nothing can stop me now.

I do actually believe in love. I can't say that I'm 100 percent successful in that department, but I think it's one of the few worthwhile human experiences. It's cooler than anything I can think of right now.

In my nothing, you were everything, to me.

Apparently, the image of our president is as offensive to MTV as it is to me.

I think there's something strangely musical about noise.

Bow down before the one you serve, you're going to get what you deserve.

I feel uncomfortable because I'm insecure about who I am.

I was up above it. Now, I'm down in it.

Sometimes we pee on each other before we go on stage.

Though I still have no semblance of a life outside of Nine Inch Nails at the moment, I realize my goals have gone from getting a record deal or selling another record to being a better person, more well-rounded, having friends, having a relationship with somebody.

This isn't meant to last. This is for right now.

'Downward Spiral' felt like I had an unending bottomless pit of rage and self-loathing inside me and I had to somehow challenge something or I'd explode. I thought I could get through by putting everything into my music, standing in front of an audience and screaming emotions at them from my guts.

'Yeezus,' I really love it. I think the sound of it is cool.

A lot of what I've done as Nine Inch Nails has been governed by fear. I was trying to keep the songs in a framework that was tough, and I learnt a lot from Jesus and Mary Chain about how to bury nice pop songs in unlistenable noise - the idea being if you can get behind that wall, you find there's a pearl inside.

Any time I sit down and write music, the first part of that is always centering myself and thinking about who I currently am.

Anyone who's an executive at a record label does not understand what the Internet is, how it works, how people use it, how fans and consumers interact - no idea. I'm surprised they know how to use e-mail.

As long as it feels valid to me and feels sincere, I'll do what I do under the moniker of Nine Inch Nails if it's appropriate. I would hate to think I would ever be in a position where I'm faking it to get a paycheck.

Balance is good, because one extreme or the other leads to misery, and I've spent a lot of my life at one of those extremes.

Being a rock & roll star has become as legitimate a career option as being an astronaut or a policeman or a fireman.

Books are better than movies because you design the set the way you want it to look.

Fear has governed my life, if I think about it.

For me, 'The Social Network' isn't about Facebook. It certainly isn't about how people use it. It's about a flawed character and his pursuit of that grand idea that defines him and validates his life and how far he'll go to get it, and the repercussions that come as a result of that - what he gives up in the process.

Frankly, I have always dreaded writing - there always seemed to be pain involved, unpleasant self-examination and a lot of fear.

I aspire to make a record that sounds better 10 listens in than it does after two, and still, at 50 listens, you're picking out things that add a depth and a thoughtfulness to it; there's enough in there that you can still be extracting pieces out of it.

I believe sometimes you have a choice in what inspiration you choose to follow and other times you really don't.

I can still make a living with touring. And maybe you buy a t-shirt. And I would rather 10 million people get my record and listen to it for free than 500,000 that I coerced to pay $15 for it, you know?

I did not grow up in a cosmopolitan environment. I grew up in a little town in the middle of nowhere, pre-Internet, pre-college radio.

I do remember my first purchase: the Partridge Family's 'Greatest Hits.' I got it for $3.99 at a failed chain of pre-Wal-Mart-type stores called Jamesway. God, I'm old.

I don't even know why I'm saying this in an interview situation, but I always feel like I'm not good enough for some reason. I wish that wasn't the case, but left to my own devices, that voice starts speaking up.

I don't have a family. I'd like to have one. I just haven't somehow gotten around to it yet.

I don't have to save rock. I don't even like rock that much.

I doubt I'll ever pay someone to do a remix again, because there's some amazing stuff just coming out of bedrooms.

I foolishly thought that if I just 'made it' then everything would be okay. And everything wasn't okay.

I found that when I was putting my own music out, with my Twitter feed as the pure marketing budget, I'm preaching to the choir.

I had to come to terms about becoming an addict, which, for a long time, I lied to myself about the status of until I couldn't lie any more, 'cause I was either going to die or get better.

I have been wildly enthused about gaming since I was younger, and a career path I chose not to go down but did really consider was getting into programming and game design.

I like the idea of subversively communicating with people... so that you make people see things in different ways.

I like the idea of working in an album-sized chunk, you know, and I never looked at Nine Inch Nails as a project that would be a hit-driven, single-based kind of thing.

I love David Fincher and I think he's a genius.

I need boundaries. In the modern studio there are a bunch of instruments around me, and I can simulate anything I can't play, so sometimes the palette feels too big.

I often find myself listening to a record because a lot of people or magazines have told me it's good and I'm supposed to like it, and I try to stay in touch with what's happening and I'm also a fan of music. I find myself trying to like something that I really don't think is that great.

I realized that I was afraid to really, really try something, 100%, because I had never reached true failure.

I realized when I was 23 that I had never really tried anything.

I really try to put myself in uncomfortable situations. Complacency is my enemy.

I spent a long time experimenting, saying, 'Here's a record that's free, or $5 if you want a nice version or $250 if you'd like a really nice coffee-table thing.' Everything felt like the right thing to do at the time and then six months later would feel tired. And I would feel tired. So that's one reason for returning to a major label.

I think early on in my career, I was heavily inspired by bands like Throbbing Gristle and Test Dept, and films of David Lynch, for example, where the soundscape plays a very important role in the listening experience.

I think it's easy to make impenetrable music that nobody can get, and you can hide behind that sometimes.