My first visit to West Berlin was in February 1983. The drive through East Berlin, the fact that West Berlin was surrounded by a wall that was more than 100 miles long - the absurdity and intensity of it really knocked me out.
Henry RollinsA man with an excruciatingly painful condition wrote me and told me that his doctor said that the only cure for what he has is death, and he might want to consider suicide. What do you say to him? I doubt the, "Hey let's go get some coffee and talk" thing is going to be at all helpful.
Henry RollinsWe are misery-making machines! Homo sapiens has perfected the art of causing suffering. Pain is humankind's collective GDP.
Henry RollinsHuman beings should not be reduced to a state to where they almost get into a fight over a small bar of soap.
Henry RollinsAll by yourself, unable to express the pain of your distress with your deeper inside. You alienate yourself and everybody else.
Henry RollinsWhen you're very young, images that you upload into your very young mind tend to stay with you.
Henry RollinsWhen you put yourself in environments that continually test you, that's where all the good stories come from. That's where the jokes come from is from the shitty parts.
Henry RollinsIf you hate your parents, the man or the establishment, don't show them up by getting wasted and wrapping your car around a tree. If you really want to rebel against your parents, out-learn them, outlive them, and know more than they do.
Henry RollinsRamones music has a Pavlovian effect on me - the song starts, and the world blurs around the sound.
Henry RollinsI think about the meaning of pain. Pain is personal. It really belongs to the one feeling it. Probably the only thing that is your own. I like mine.
Henry RollinsLiterally thousands of lawsuits have been filed against the NFL by retired players, many of whom say that information on brain injury in football was withheld from them.
Henry RollinsI'm a recognizable person and some people feel the need for some reason to take me to task. You're really messing with the wrong person on that one.
Henry RollinsThere are things that happen so quickly. A better cameraman can capture them, but if the light is not bright and you hoist up your camera by the time you've dialed in your settings. There are eye blink moments where you're like "Aaahhhh, I wish," but those are too many to catalogue. Nothing really sticks out.
Henry RollinsWell, there's Katrina, but you can go through lots of Kurdistan and it looks like Katrina was just there but there's people living in it.
Henry RollinsNo such thing as spare time, no such thing as free time, no such thing as down time. All you got is life time. Go.
Henry RollinsIn the theory of evolution there is no talk of God and no Bibles are used. They're not looking for higher powers, extraterrestrials, or anything else that could be found in the science fiction section, because they are not dealing with fiction.
Henry RollinsThere are other people, other economies, governments, cultures, religions, and destinies going on at the same time as yours. You have to widen the scope of your lens and start seeing more. Because Americans, it's easy to make us freak out. When the going gets rough, you have to get conservative. That's what's happened to America in the last eight years. I just try to point out that there's more going on than most people pay attention to.
Henry RollinsJazz music is as American as it gets, and so is the U.S. Postal Service. A Miles Davis stamp is a perfect marriage of two great American institutions.
Henry RollinsIf you have an idea of what you want to do in your future, you must go at it with almost monastic obsession. [...] You have to go at it single-mindedly and let nothing get in your way.
Henry RollinsAs a young person, I was on the road playing music, so I was getting new environments shoved in my face whether I wanted them or not.
Henry RollinsI was raised in Washington, DC, very violent place. I grew up with violence. My introduction to music was violent. The years I've spent on tours, some of that was extremely violent.
Henry RollinsIf I were a doctor, I would prescribe that you addict yourself deeply and irrevocably to music and never, ever seek cure outside of more music. It really is the best drug available.
Henry RollinsI don't consider myself an actor, for me it's employment. Like the actor who's a waiter a lot, I'm an actor when I'm not on tour, in that that's a job I can do.
Henry RollinsIf you listen to 'The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,' by Gil Scott-Heron, that album is dripping with rage.
Henry RollinsThe number of people who are actual supporters of Mr. Romney could very well be less than the Donner Party, whose members they sadly resemble in many ways.
Henry RollinsAll good writers inspire me as I have never thought I was any good. As far as a writer who made me think I could do it, it was Henry Miller. Not because I thought he was so simple that I reckoned I could pull it off as well, but it was his freedom and guts that really moved me to want to write all the time.
Henry RollinsWith age, life becomes complex and difficult, often fraught with risk on several levels, from the practical to the fiscal.
Henry RollinsAfter having read a lot of fiction, literature, whatever you want to call it, from Wolfe to Houellebecq, I think you have to have an understanding and insight of the human condition that is informed and motivated by a desire to immerse yourself in the human world and bring these stories to bear.
Henry RollinsYes, I guess you could say I am a loner, but I feel more lonely in a crowed room with boring people than I feel on my own.
Henry RollinsToo sick and freaked out not to want a bullet for every passer by, too sick and freaked out to breathe, too sick and freaked out to care, too sick and freaked out to think of anything but the annihilation of my mind and denial of my life. So sick and freaked out that I think everyone is my friend.
Henry Rollins