Quotes from Moby

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.

The kick in the teeth with fame is, when you don't have it, you beat yourself up for it because you don't have it, but when you have it, you are miserable and kill yourself for it.

When I'd asked for a drum machine for Christmas my family had been confused – none of them knew what a drum machine was. But I'd noticed that a lot of my musical heroes who'd started off as punk-rockers, like New Order and Killing Joke, were now using synthesizers and drum machines, and I wanted to join them.

You think when you get to go where you want to go, finally you be happy, but then when you get to where you want to go, you are actually even more miserable because you have nothing left to aspire to, and you feel this hopelessness, like what's left to aspire towards?

You're buying into this celebrity bullshit? Don't you know it's all a facile celebration of commerce and mediocrity?

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.

My problem wasn't drinking and drugs, I decided – it was daylight.

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.

cucumber-infused sake MAKES: 750 ML 2 English (hothouse) cucumbers 1 (750 ml) bottle sake Trim off and discard the ends of the cucumber. Slice the cucumber in half lengthwise, then roughly slice into pieces. Combine the sliced cucumber and sake in a 1-quart container. Let sit for 24 hours. Strain the infusion into an airtight container. Store the infusion in the refrigerator for 1 week.

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.

There was Donald Trump. He had his name on gold-plated buildings and was the star of his own reality show. He had more than anyone could ever dream of, but as he stabbed his phone with his odd little orange fingers he looked like the saddest man on the planet.

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.

I'd known Charlize since the mid-1990s, when she dated a friend of mine, and I'd met John recently. They were both very tall and they looked slightly awkward, like hyper-attractive praying mantises, folded into two of the small plastic chairs next to the picnic table.

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.

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...