Hero

Be yourself, don't take anyone's shit, and never let them take you alive.

You should never want to hurt yourself. You should love yourself. Sometimes you have to kind of die inside in order to rise from your own ashes and believe in yourself and love yourself and become a new person.

Being happy doesn't mean that everything is perfect. It means that you've decided to look beyond the imperfections.

No matter what anyone says, don't take their fucking bullshit. Because you're better than them, faster than them, and goddammit, you're much better looking!

You're going to come across a lot of shitty bands, and a lot of shitty people. And if anyone of those people call you names because of what you look like or they don't accept you for who you are, I want you to look right at that motherfucker, stick up your middle finger, and scream: fuck you!

It's okay to be messed up.

You can do amazing things when you believe [in yourself], amazing stuff that people aren't even capable of. If you believe it, then you could make other people believe it too.

All your quirks and all your problems, even your depressions and your failures - that's what makes you, you.

I think it's just important that you keep yourself alive, you just stay fighting. Because it actually isn't that bad. I mean, we started this band thinking the world was extremely ugly and I think now we realise that it's more beautiful than we thought.

I think people look at us and see it's okay to be different. They see that there is a way other than what they're being offered. That you can stand out, that you can be creative, that you can be yourself.

Nothing is worth hurting yourself over, nothing is worth taking your life over, do you understand?!

If you, or someone you know are severely depressed, you need to talk to someone, a friend, your mom, someone at school, I don't give a fuck, because pissing away your life on suicide is fucking bullshit!

The world is gonna try to clean you up, what you gonna do about it? They're gonna try and make you pretty, what the fuck you gonna do about it? You're gonna say: I wanna stay ugly.

[Our music is] for people who need help and something to turn to. I think that's the kind of person, for better or worse, that we appeal to. I don't know the amount of people who need help or are suicidal, but I think it's more than people let on. That's what it is for us so it makes sense that that's what it is for somebody else.

Don't ever let the media tell you what your body is supposed to look like. You are beautiful the way you are. Stay beautiful, keep it ugly.

Heroes are ordinary people who make themselves extraordinary.

Happy birthday, Gerard Way.