"When Andy died, I couldn't listen to his songs for about two years after that, and it was for that reason — his lyrics often seem as though they can tell that story. But then again, my lyrics often could tell the same one. In terms of seeing everything as a matter of life and death — if that's what you're feeling at the time, then that's what you're going to write. It's sort of a morbid exchange when somebody who is a writer like that dies, and then everyone starts picking through all their lyrics. In Kurt 's case, whatever he was thinking and whatever he was writing, there wasn't an arrow pointing at what his demise was. It's a stream of thought, it's a possibility — it's definitely something that somebody was feeling when they were writing. It doesn't mean that it's going to happen. But it doesn't necessarily mean that it isn't, either."

“He's like one of my best friends in the world. Absolutely genuine guy, I swear on the bible.”

“There was a time in the middle of my depression when I basically stopped eating. I wasn’t doing it to lose weight or anything — I just forgot to eat. I got down to 145 pounds, which is pretty skinny. I'm 6'3". And then I read an article in a magazine by a doctor talking about his experiences with anorexia, and everything started to make sense — the aches in the joints, the headaches, the way my bones felt as if I could bend them with my hands. I started eating again. That was much better.”

“I don't know how everyone else feels, but I definitely go through periods of extreme self-confidence, feeling like I can do anything. Perhaps a fan will sense that, like in a performance, and the hero image creeps out. But then someone will say something, however insignificant, or I'll get something in my head and, all of a sudden, I'm plummeting in the opposite direction, I'm a piece of shit, and I really can't do anything about it. That's where 'Outshined' comes from, and why I'll never consider myself a hero.”

“Hip-hop kind of absorbed rock, in terms of the attitude and the whole point of why rock was important music. Young people felt like rock music was theirs, from Elvis to the Beatles to the Ramones to Nirvana. This was theirs; it wasn’t their parents’. I think hip-hop became the musical style that embraces that mentality.”

“We were never looking for a different lifestyle. We weren't doing it for fast cars and big houses and there doesn't seem to be any regulation in terms of lots of model chicks following us around like idiots. It's not like we have to reach back and try to hang on to our roots. We never left them. Our lifestyles haven't changed. Maybe we're making mortgage payments now instead of rent payments, and we own the car we're driving instead of making payments on it, or maybe we're driving a new car instead of a $500 15 year old car. But we're still driving to the same places, we still live in the same neighborhood, we still have the same friends.”

“Have you noticed how Lollapalooza isn't this multi-cultural, multi-sexual, multi-racial event at all? What Perry Farrell never admits is that it's just a slick rock concert with a good name and his ambition is to make a lot of money. Perry has a very good manager. He even has a percentage on the parking. It's a huge draw, and what people don't realise is it's far from being just the 'alternative college' crowd who go. It's very mainstream and very middle class. Even when we did it in 1992 with Ice Cube, the whole audience was entirely white.”