Brian Hugh Warner, commonly known by his stage name Marilyn Manson, is a singer-songwriter, author, music composer, painter, actor, and a former music journalist.
He is known for being one of the most recognizable and controversial personalities in the world of music. His antics during their band’s live performances made him quite famous but also made him a hugely controversial figure in the U.S.
Manson worked as a music journalist for some time and later established the band ‘Marilyn Manson’ together with guitarist Daisy Berkowitz. Five years later, the band released their first album titled ‘Portrait of an American Family’ followed by some of their popular albums ‘Antichrist Superstar’ and ‘Mechanical Animals’ among many others. He has also acted in films, the most popular being ‘The Lost Highway’ in 1997.
We bring to you a collection of quotes and sayings by Marilyn Manson that explores his views about life, music, art, love, and a whole lot more.
Table of Contents
Marilyn Manson Quotes About Life
1. “I believe that you are not stuck with a pre-destiny. I believe that there are ways to see all these things that are laid down in front of you and where you belong and to smack yourself in the face when you realize that you’ve strayed off your path and get back to where your path is.”
2. “I think people have to take responsibility for their own actions.”
3. “When all of your wishes are granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed.”
4. “Rumors, stories… I’m used to them. I got my ribs removed, I was on ‘The Wonder Years’… You know there’s a different story every day.”
5. “There’s no reason to change what you are, but if you’re not being you, then you need to acknowledge that.”
6. “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.”
7. “My goal isn’t to make money, it’s to try and survive and make a point.”
8. “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.”
9. “I can’t turn off the way I think, and that’s essentially who I am, who anybody is.”
10. “I pity anybody who has to spend a day with me.”
11. “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.”
12. “People only hate what they see in themselves.”
13. “I dare you all to write one more thing that you won’t say to my face.”
14. “I think confidence is the most appealing quality in any human being or any artist; that’s what really attracts us to people.”
15. “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.”
16. “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.”
17. “We live in a society of victimization, where people are much more comfortable being victimized than actually standing up for themselves.”
18. “For me, the key to longevity – and immortality, in a sense – has to do with transformation.”
19. “Sometimes I wonder if I’m a character being written, or if I’m writing myself.”
20. “I wish that my life could be like the movies, like ‘Bonnie and Clyde’ or ‘The Hunger’ or ‘Harold and Maude.’ And… it can be! It maybe just takes somebody else who is as fearless as you. It takes a person who will not hesitate.”
21. “There’s nothing that anyone could say about me that would hurt my feelings.”
22. “The point is that life for me is not going to be the way it is for everyone else. I have a fog machine and movie lights in my bedroom.”
23. “I feel like I’ve dreamed half of my life that hasn’t happened yet, so a lot of times I’m going along, and I do stuff, and I know that I’ve done it. I have deja vus more than I have regular experiences. If half of your day is a deja vu, then you start to wonder, What is real and what isn’t?”
24. “If you lose who you are, what do you have?”
25. “A lot of people don’t want to make their own decisions. They’re too scared. It’s much easier to be told what to do.”
26. “If you’re gonna pretend to be something, then you have to at least live up to what it is.”
27. “As a kid, I just felt like an outsider.”
28. “Things have become devalued to the point where people don’t realize the repercussions, that they’re devaluing themselves. It could end up bringing about chaos, a lawless situation.”
29. “Everything is acting.”
30. “I don’t want to feel like I’ve matured. That’s a stupid word that I never want to use.”
31. “Sometimes you feel awkward being what you’re best at, you feel like you have to be something new.”
32. “The hero is never the star of the story.”
33. “You can find inspiration for man’s behavior wherever you look.”
34. “I never said to be like me, I say to be like you and make a difference.”
35. “I don’t encourage people to choose any sort of sexuality.”
36. “I’m kind of shy, and I think that I take that out by performing in front of a lot of people. That’s how I get out my shyness.”
37. “Find out what’s really out there. I never said to be like me, I say be like you and make a difference.”
Marilyn Manson Quotes About Love
1. “Marriage changes everything.”
2. “It’s better to use a curse word than to hurt somebody else, I find.”
3. “Finding someone who’s willing to drown with you creates a situation where you no longer want to drown.”
4. “When you’re taught to love everyone, to love your enemies, then what value does that place on love?”
5. “When you’re in a relationship, if you just break it down to regular terms, people are attracted to something, and that’s what they want you to be, and that’s what you should just be, and for me, it’s very simple – if I meet a girl and I say, This is what I like about you. Just continue. Every day.”
6. “Sacrifice to me is something you do without expecting something in return.”
7. “I fall in love very easily.”
8. “Part of me is afraid to get close to people because I’m afraid that they’re going to leave.”
9. “If you lose emotion, and you gain it back, you realize that hate and love are very important to distribute properly. So I’m not going to waste any kind of emotion on things that aren’t related to me.”
10. “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.”
11. “I’ve found a woman I can relate to. That’s something – and I don’t even feel sappy saying it – that, if anyone has that, don’t lose it, because it’s probably the only thing that you can ever really find any satisfaction from.”
12. “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.”
Marilyn Manson Quotes About Art & Music
1. “They’ll see it. And it doesn’t matter if they don’t. It’s only Rock ‘n’ Roll. But I do intend to move more into the Mainstream. Marilyn Manson is just the First phase.”
2. “What I know is my music gets blamed for school shootings.”
3. “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.”
4. “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.”
5. “On my albums, it’s as though the parental advisory is built in.”
6. “Leave me in a room with some crayons and I’ll draw on the wall.”
7. “In music, you feel a connection to the voice and think about the person behind it. In art that’s secondary.”
8. “I decided to make music again at a time when I couldn’t have had more obstacles.”
9. “I’ve never treated anyone in my band like they’re not on the same level as me. I’m not that kind of person.”
10. “These people are artists. These people are musicians. They’re taking it out and trying to express it that way.”
11. “Music is the strongest form of magic.”
12. “People expect me to me a ‘shock rocker,’ but there’s nothing you can do anymore to be shocking.”
13. “My feelings are, if you’re gonna lead a rock n’ roll lifestyle, don’t let it affect your work. I know I can stay up all night and still come in the next day and write a song, and nothing will stop me from doing it. I expect the same from everyone else.”
14. “Is adult entertainment killing our children? or is killing our children entertaining our adults?”
15. “I’m my most creative between 3 and 5 a.m. That’s the way I’ve always been.”
16. “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.”
17. “Art gives people a reason to be alive.”
18. “My art is not limited to the songs I create but also to the reaction it creates. I like to sit back and look at the whole thing as if it’s a tornado that I’m controlling. It’s creating chaos. When you create chaos, ideas are turned upside down, and everybody looks at things in a different way.”
19. “The first time I performed musically, I threw up.”
20. “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.”
21. “Sometimes music, movies and books are the only things that let us feel like someone else feels like we do.”
22. “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.”
23. “There’s just no great rock albums anymore. There’s a lot of rock music out there, but it’s very bland and disposable.”
24. “Videos have to go hand in hand with your music, so that’s why, ultimately, they should be created by the artist. And if they’re not, it doesn’t really add up to me.”
25. “Art gives me the freedom I don’t have when I make music.”
26. “I think it’s the pain and suffering that drive you to become an artist. The art itself should be the pain, sort of exorcizing every demon and making you feel like you’re a person that matters.”
Marilyn Manson, More Quotes And Sayings
1. “Are people raised to be villains or vilified like I have become?”
2. “I don’t think I have ever tried to create things to encourage people to hurt others, or themselves.”
3. “I don’t need to drive. I have no business driving. I would never be able to find my keys.”
4. “This is the culture you’re raising your kids in. Don’t be surprised if it blows up in your face.”
5. “Yes, I’m reckless and sometimes 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.”
6. “Ultimately, because I’m an artist, I can’t ever consider myself a nihilist, so I suppose I’m optimistic.”
7. “Johnny Depp is like a brother to me. We have matching tattoos on our backs – Charles Baudelaire, the flowers of evil, this giant skeleton thing. It’s kind of a secret. People say to us, Why did you get that?’ And we say, ‘No reason.”
8. “My dad loves what I do and I support my parents financially because they didn’t have a job that gave them a pension.”
9. “Man’s greatest fear is chaos.”
10. “In the end, we’re all Jerry Springer Show guests, really, we just haven’t been on the show.”
11. “If a kid is old enough to drive a car or buy a gun, isn’t he old enough to be held personally responsible for what he does with his car or gun? Or if he’s a teenager, should someone else be blamed because he isn’t as enlightened as an eighteen-year-old?”
12. “When you want to die, you at least have a goal. You’re aiming for something. It’s not a good goal, but at least you want something. And you’ve got anger and fear, but at least you’re feeling something.”
13. “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.”
14. “When I finish a picture I don’t show it to anyone if I feel it’s not good enough yet. I’ve learned to listen to my partners and my friends. For me, it’s the biggest success if they like it.”
15. “I like to make people think differently than they did before I walked in the room.”
16. “You might find me outside with a can of hair spray, spraying it with the hope that the sun will burn a hole in the Earth. Another part of me hopes people will grow up and evolve and get smarter. That’s the paradox of Marilyn Manson.”
17. “I went to one AA meeting and I got asked for an autograph.”
18. “Anybody intelligent enough to realize what America is, is not going to sit around and do nothing about it. They’re going to be the same way that I am. They’re going to be the same way our fans are. They’re going to be pissed.”
19. “Marilyn Manson is a mockery of American pop culture.”
20. “I think everybody’s got a presentation. Everybody looks a certain way because they want to convey a certain image. You look a certain way because you want people to listen to you in a certain way.”
21. “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.”
22. “Fear is something I instill in other people, mostly young girls.”
23. “Marilyn Manson is a criticism of gimmickry while being itself a gimmick.”
24. “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.”
25. “I’m not a role model. I’m a role villain.”
26. “People tend to associate anyone who looks and behaves differently with illegal or immoral activity.”
27. “Times have not become more violent. They have just become more televised.”
28. “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.”
29. “It’s my job to be the Pierrot, the clown, in the theatrical sense.”
30. “There’s a certain group of people who are always going to dislike me and disagree with whatever I say.”
If you’d like to learn more about Marilyn Manson, one of America’s most controversial celebrity icon, we would suggest you read Marilyn Manson: In His Own Words by Chuck Weiner.
