The apocalypse doesn’t have to be fire and brimstone. It could happen on a personal level. If you believe you’re the center of your own universe and … - Marilyn Manson

[The world's] not a great place anymore and it can't be. I'm sure it would have been much more enjoyable to be alive in the fifties, when there was at least an illusion of purity, and things that were taboo had such a great power to them. I think it was a time when magic was really alive. There's no imagination anymore. It was eliminated with video games and VCR's. I'm only necessary because of the way the world is. Well, maybe if I manage to make the world a better place then maybe I'd want to have a kid.

Gradually, I began to resent Christian school and doubt everything I was told. It became clear that the suffering they were praying to be released from was a suffering they had imposed on themselves — and now us. The beast they lived in fear of was really themselves: It was man, not some mythological demon, that was going to destroy man in the end. And this beast had been created out of their fear. The seeds of who I am now had been planted. “Fools aren’t born,” I wrote in my notebook one day during ethics class. “They are watered and grown like weeds by institutions such as Christianity.” During dinner that night, I confessed it all to my parents. “Listen,” I explained, “I want to go to public school, because I don’t belong here. Everything I like, they’re against.

When someone was willing to drown with me, I really didn't want to drown anymore.