Porcelain Quotes

“Twin Peaks was my religion. Well, Twin Peaks and Christianity. But at present, Twin Peaks was winning. I loved God, but at the moment I was more obsessed with Bob and Dale Cooper and Audrey Horne.”
― Moby, Porcelain: A Memoir

“One cell in its unspeakable complexity would be worth the worship and awe of the entire universe. And cells were everywhere, their miraculous ness diminished only by their ubiquity.”
― Moby, Porcelain: A Memoir

“It represented a world I didn’t know, the opposite of where I was—and I hated where I was. I hated the poverty, the cigarette smoke, the drug use, the embarrassment, the loneliness. And Diana Ross was promising me that there was a world that wasn’t stained with sadness and resignation. Somewhere there was a world that was sensual and robotic and hypnotic. And clean.”
― Moby, Porcelain: A Memoir

“Run On” started with an ostinato piano part, and I passed the exit for the Holiday Inn where Robert Downey Jr. and his family had lived when they were moving out of Darien. Robert Downey Jr. had been my best friend in third grade. We’d bonded because we were both neurotic eight-year-olds, and his parents and my mom were the only adults in Darien who smoked pot.”
― Moby, Porcelain

“Then I thought, Maybe it doesn’t need a bass part as much as it needs a bass sound. I turned on my Roland Juno-106 synth and created a very simple and understated bass sound. All low end, no attack, no high end. Just simple, anchoring bass. I played it over the chords and it worked. Most people wouldn’t even notice the bass; it just sat there underneath the song, holding it together.”
― Moby, Porcelain

“While I waited for my food I padded in my slippers down the hallway to my studio and turned on the equipment. First the power strips, then the synths and samplers. Then I loaded the discs into my Akai samplers, listening to them whir and click quietly as they took code from the discs and loaded it into their Japanese sampler brains. I climbed under a table and turned on my Soundcraft twenty-four-channel mixing desk, and finally I turned on the power amplifier for the speakers. My studio was up and running and making the calm hum that is the quiet background noise of a studio, like distant traffic or a beach at night. I didn’t know what I was going to work on, so I loaded up some old gospel samples I’d had for years but never figured out how to use. Years ago I’d written a fast euro track called “Why Does My Heart?” that used these samples. Luckily I’d never released it, as it was pretty bad.”
― Moby, Porcelain

“Two years earlier there hadn’t been a rave scene in the States. And now, seemingly overnight, the world had changed. Every decentsize city in North America now had DJ record stores and rave-clothing stores. Musicians were trading in their guitars for synths and making techno records that were becoming globe-spanning anthems. It was 1992 and the rave scene was blossoming like a shiny, DIY flower.”
― Moby, Porcelain

“Club kids were generally urban and gay, ravers were generally suburban and straight, and goths lived in basements and spiderwebs. The ravers and club kids shared a love for techno and ecstasy, while the goths loved electronic music and old churches. So the Limelight became home for all three tribes.”
― Moby, Porcelain

“Maybe this was the meaning of life: to live in the darkness of Plato’s cave and stare endlessly into the void, but to make pancakes and watch Woody Allen movies and look at the sun coming through the skylights. Those were the comforts of not having true knowledge of the world, but of being a part of it and being amazed by it.”
― Moby, Porcelain: A Memoir

“A very tall bearded guy was standing in a doorway, smoking a cigarette. “Hey”, he said.
“Hi,” I said. “Excuse me, do you rehearse here?”
“Yeah,” he said, extending his hand and saying, almost formally, “Gibby Haynes. I’m in the Butthole Surfers.”
I shook his hand. “Moby,” I said. “I just moved upstairs.”
“Are you an artist?”
“No, a musician.”
“Oh, cool. Welcome to the building.”
“Do you know who else has spaces here?” I asked.
“Well, there’s us and Iggy and Sonic Youth and Helmet and Sean Lennon and the Beastie Boys and some other people,” he said as someone behind him started making a wall of feedback.”
― Moby, Porcelain: A Memoir

“I'd heard "Rhapsody in Blue" a thousand times and it always amazed me. It was so humble and then so bombastic. It was beautiful, bright, and terrifying: old and new, European and American. At times it sounded like Debussy, at times it sounded like Stravinsky, and at times it sounded like the Lower East Side in 1910.
"Rhapsody in Blue" was a quintessentially New York work of art, but it was also about moving from east to west, from the old world to the new...”
― Moby, Porcelain: A Memoir

“When I became a vegan in 1987, in one fell swoop I extended my life expectancy and annoyed most of the people in my life—my mom most of all.”
― Moby, Porcelain: A Memoir

“I consoled myself with the knowledge that if I were any good at pool I’d run the table quickly and not be able to play as long. As with so many things, there was utility in avoiding excellence.”
― Moby, Porcelain: A Memoir