“We no longer like to think about bureaucracy, yet it informs every aspect of out existence. It’s as if as a planetary civilization, we have decided to clap out hands over our ears and start humming whenever the topic comes up.”

Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business (1985)

Bon, ben, dans un cas comme ça, qu'est-ce qu'on fait? On se crache dans les mains et on recommence!
1995 referendum concession speech.

[Our Vietnam: the war, 1954–1975, Langguth, A. J., 2000] p.216. Referring to the immolation of Buddhist monks including Thích Quảng Đức in 1963.

Source: Gone with the Wind

Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir (2008)

Then I go out onstage and it’s like diving into the cold Puget Sound after spending five weeks in Hawaii—there’s a shock to the system, but the fear goes away. You get used to it, which is pretty cool, because if I stopped performing, I could just disappear and end up being some weird chattering man that walks the streets in rags, staring only at the pavement. At first you rationalize that going to a club where people recognize you is a bad idea; then going to a neighborhood bar becomes a bad idea, too. Going to the grocery store becomes a bad idea. Answering the phone becomes a bad idea. Then every time the dog barks, you think the National Guard is on your roof ready to drill holes in the shingles and shoot at you. So I have to deal with the outside world on sort of a maintenance level—go out to a bar every so often and just be around people.
Interview with Details Magazine, December 1996 https://pitchfork.com/features/article/10081-chris-cornell-searching-for-solitude/,
On being anti-social

Source At the Jazz Corner of the World, Blue Note, 1959.

Books, There’s Probably No God - The Atheist’s Guide to Christmas (2009)