Why I Like Trent Reznor

Reznor on religion:
"There are just some things that don't seem very fair in the world, like this fucking hypocrisy of organized religion. I just don't understand how people can blindly believe a bunch of the shit they're fed, to believe it so that they don't think too hard about other issues. 'Be a good boy and you'll go to heaven.' If it works for you, fine, but it doesn't work for me and that pisses me off because I kind of wish it did."

Reznor on music:
"It's like beating your head open and unzipping your chest cavity saying 'here are my guts - everything I've felt, including a lot of stuff I'm not proud of'. It's hard. It uses you up. I walk off stage sometimes and feel like I've just slept with everybody in the audience."

"To a large extent, my music is about me coming to terms with who I am...Sometimes that's a shocking thing because when you peel back the skin, sometimes you find that what you see is not always the person you originally hoped or thought you were."

"Today, musicians are complimented much more on their business plan than their talent. When I see an idiot like Fred Durst [of Limp Bizkit] spouting off about, 'I'm in it for the money, buy my record, buy two copies of it, I'm going to be the best business man, I'm just doing this till I get into movies' -- [he should] sell dish-washing liquid or something. It's damaged music. I don't mean him personally, but this climate has created a very unhealthy situation to spawn new creative acts."

Reznor on love:
"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..."

Reznor on George W. Bush's reelection:
"One step closer to the end of the world. The one-two combo of corporate greed and organized religion apparently proved to be too much for reason, sanity and compassion." (See related article on what Bush had to do with Nine Inch Nails pulling out of this year's MTV movie awards:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8010244/.)

Reznor on the John/Paul/George/Ringo:

In response to a question posed in Rolling Stone (RS 1127) about who Reznor considers a genius: "It's so obvious, but the Beatles. When I was growing up, the people who liked the Beatles I didn't like, so I didn't pay attention to them. Around The Downward Spiral I really started digging White Album-era Beatles, and it expanded outward from there. They were so far ahead of the game, it's just not fair."

Other reasons...
He's good friends with Tori Amos and Maynard James Keenan. He's close to his grandparents. He's not afraid to admit, "I feel uncomfortable because I'm insecure about who I am." And he writes lyrics like If I could start again/a million miles away/I would keep myself/I would find a way and cries every time he hears Johnny Cash cover them.