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" One of the biggest wake-up calls of my career was when I saw a record contract. I said, 'Wait - you sell it for $18.98 and I make 80 cents? And I have to pay you back the money you lent me to make it and then you own it?' "

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" I thought I'd reached the bottom a few times, but then I'd realise there was another 30 floors of despair below that. "

Trent Reznor

Despair

Bottom

Below

" It probably wasn't until Nine Inch Nails played the first Lollapalooza that I actually went to a festival. "

" It's a humbling thing, having kids. One of my sons came to rehearsals, and now he says Daddy's job is 'go play loud music.' "

Trent Reznor

Play

Now

" My life has two modes. One is sitting around writing and contemplating or building things. The other is execution mode. It takes a while to switch from one to the other. "

" When David Fincher called me up a few years ago and said, 'Hey, I'd like you to score this film 'The Social Network,' I said, 'I'm flattered, but I really don't have any real experience scoring films, and I'd rather not screw it up on a high-profile project. And I like you and I don't want to compromise our friendship.' "

" Now U2's not my favorite band, but I do respect them, and in the same way I respect Bowie: They change without fear of change. "

" 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. "

" When I return to the writing process after being away from it for a while, the first part of it always is being honest with myself: What am I into right now? Is it rock bands and guitars, is it noise, is it dance beats and electronics? Is it space, is it clutter? "

" My input for the first 16, 17 years of my life was AM radio, FM radio - pretty mainstream stuff. Rolling Stone was probably as edgy as it got. "

" With a Nine Inch Nails show, I'm building on a legacy that comes with a certain set of expectations. I have to push that forward, I have to reinvent myself, I have to feel current and valid. "

" I've said it before and I'll say it again: I don't think music should be free. "

" To me, rock music was never meant to be safe. I think there needs to be an element of intrigue, mystery, subversiveness. Your parents should hate it. "

" I'm a lot less precious than I used to be about putting things out, for better or for worse. The result of a public that has a very high consumption rate and turnover rate is people listen to more music but spend less time with individual bits of music. "

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

" 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 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. "

" In my life, I was always floating around the edge of the dark side and saying what if take it a little bit too far, and who says you have to stop there, and what's behind the next door. Maybe you gain a wisdom from examining those things. But after a while, you get too far down in the quicksand. "

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

" My life has been many examples of shortsighted goals that I thought would fix things. You know, if there's something broken inside me, if there's a hole in there, I thought: If I could just write a good song someday, then I'd be OK. You know, if I could just be on stage in front of people I'd never seen before and be validated by them. "

" I miss how a record label can help spread the word that you have something out. "

" I think there's something strangely musical about noise. "

" When I'm writing music, I'm not playing a character. I'm not Alice Cooper or Gene Simmons or someone like that, who has acknowledged that they are writing music for a character. "

" What I was concerned about when I wrote the 'Downward Spiral' record was being a self-centred destructive force. The point was tearing down everything in a search for something else. "

Trent Reznor

Spiral

Point

" My music, I hope, takes 100% of your concentration. I know how to do that. "

" I've always been into computers. When I was getting out of high school and forming my identity musically, all of it was really coming into the fold, computers and drum machines. It felt like, you know, I'm in the right place at the right time. I liked the collision. "

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

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

Trent Reznor

Image

MTV

" The first set of lyrics for the first songs I ever wrote, which are the ones on 'Pretty Hate Machine,' came from private journal entries that I realized I was writing in lyric form. "

" MTV can't do less for me, let's put it that way. I'm fine without them. "

Trent Reznor

Way

Less

" You know, if nobody knows who you are, nobody's going to buy your record. "