Henry Rollins Quotes

For me, music was an age/time/place thing. One day I woke up and realized I was done. That was many years ago.

Every year, August lashes out in volcanic fury, rising with the din of morning traffic, its great metallic wings smashing against the ground, heating the air with ever-increasing intensity.

You always know the mark of a coward. A coward hides behind freedom. A brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others.

I never think of what it's going to be like later. I only think in the present tense. The only time I think backwards is when I have to reissue something.

What does New York sound like? For me, the Charlie Parker at the Royal Roost recordings on the Savoy label are the total embodiment of the New York music experience.

I will do my best to dodge tonight's depression Hide in sleep Damage myself in dreams Wake up older, slightly more used.

I've got a knife and I want to talk to you I've got a prayer and I want to carve it to you I've got no chance, that's why I'm looking to you O Lord, ride with me

One person's disaster is another person's talking point.

I do a lot of stuff for free anyway. Like a lot of people who you see who don't need money. Mick Jagger - he needs money? He just likes to go sing Satisfaction every night. If I wrote that song I probably would do it too.

The bible saw that can get a lot of people killed, so let's try and steer people away from that. I am not an expert on the bible. I am just saying.

The scarcity of the music not only makes the music itself enjoyable but it also gives the collector a strange sense of superiority.

I'm usually busy - if you call me at the house, I get about four phone calls there a year - I'm usually running around the house with a pen in my mouth holding onto something, folding it, or doing something to it, and it's always a bad time.

That's the only interaction I have with people, those talking shows. Most of the people in my phone book are artists, management, producers, engineers. I don't ever call people with, "Hi! How are you?" I say, "How are you? Do you have that 16/30 ready? When do you want me to come into the studio?" That's what I do.

Airports in major cities, like LAX, are trippy environments. It is at once a national and international gathering of those in transition: The euphoric, emerging from planes, their journey at an end, and the determined, about to depart.

I lack the skill to hold a story line for the length required for a novel or even a short story. I have never had an idea that could withstand a hundred thousand words, or even ten thousand words of rubber meeting the road.

We spend millions of dollars to remove pain from our lives. It's why so many people get hooked on painkillers. The body becomes addicted to painlessness. That tells you a lot.

Miles Davis would have this lineup of all these amazing musicians and one day would just say, 'We're done.' After tons of great records and tickets sold, he said, 'Now I'm going to grow my hair out and play my horn through a wah-wah pedal.' Rather than play it safe, he went on.

I'm of the opinion that the Democrats have the ideas I agree with more often than not. Reenergizing the middle class and giving people a break.

I am not immune to the lure of a signed record, flier or set list. The fact that your music heroes potentially had, in their own hands, the record you now have in yours is kind of cool. When the musician has departed, it can give the thing a unique power.

You’ll never know that just sitting across a room full of people, I have transformed you into a goddess. A destroyer of despair.

Desperation is the secret to my steady employment. I am not interested in downtime. I really like to keep working all the time and I always feel like I'm in the mail room of life; working up.

I don't wish to be anything more or less than what I am. If this is how it is, then so be it.

I wonder what it's like to be from a state that is spread across a few islands way out in the Pacific Ocean, only added to the United States in 1959. Not only that but to be the birthplace of America's first black president? Pretty cool, I bet.

Why do you think the old stories tell of men who set out on great journeys to impress the gods? Because trying to impress people just isn't worth the time and effort.

I don't really write for fun; it's not an enjoyable experience. For me, art, or whatever the hell it is I do, has always been a refuge from that which makes me want to tear my lungs out. That's why I play like I play; I'm not into entertainment.

I didn't want to work at Pizza Hut and I didn't want to join the Army. So I just decided to go out and be awesome.

I don't have any spiritual anything.You shoot a guy with a gun, he dies. You step on a bug, the bug dies. There is no heaven for me and no hell. And certainly not any Karma.

Life is weird, great and dangerous.

The talking shows allow me to come out of my cave and that's why those shows go on for so long. I hate walking off stage. Sometimes I walk off and I miss them as I'm walking off the stage. I wonder if they'll let me go another hour. That's why I do it: to communicate, to get points across.

Youth is fleeting and life is short, you might as well strike hard. Anything else is just average.

Help me to withstand your beauty as it stands out of reach. Give me the capacity to forget ever having felt your touch.

It's good to be able to deal with it [anger] somehow other than drinking, fighting, crashing cars, hitting your kid, your wife, your husband, your whatever. Paintbrushes, pens, movie cameras, guitars, microphones, typewriters -- these are good things. Weights. These are positive ways, good ways to deal with anger, frustration, alienation, rage. 'Cause all the other ways do nothing but hurt people.

I don't want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun - hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks.

I used to fight the pain, but recently this became clear to me: pain is not my enemy; it is my call to greatness. But when dealing with the Iron, one must be careful to interpret the pain correctly. Most injuries involving the Iron come from ego. I once spent a few weeks lifting weight that my body wasn’t ready for and spent a few months not picking up anything heavier than a fork. Try to lift what you’re not prepared to and the Iron will teach you a little lesson in restraint and self-control.

I think I am the most impressed with writing styles that defy category, like Kharms or Selby, Breton or Jarry, where you become as interested in the writer as much as the writing itself. It's all these things that make reading so appealing to me.

You can find me in the frozen mood section.

Humans are pretty amazing at living pretty much anywhere and so that makes me optimistic that perhaps humanity will be able to survive itself, because the reality is that we are going to have problems with water in this century.

I want to learn more about the world. It makes me want to get up and go.

Half of life is up - the other half is dealing with it.

I am a pretty crazy person, so it's best for me to be on my own most of the time.

I don't mind bees and think we are all the better for having them around. I like the taste of honey.

For me the music is not so much anger as much as it is of passion. And I've always associated that kind of intense emotional output with music just because the nature of the music that's attracted me as far as live.

You can get what you want. Never sell out. Don't break. Don't weaken. Don't let the kindness of strangers be your salvation, for it is no salvation at all. Unless you sleep alone, you sleep with the enemy. Never come out of the storm. On the other hand, maybe you should. You don't have what it takes to go the hard way. Come out of the cold and sit by the fire. Let them warm you with the smiles and promise of friendship's fortune. Lose your edge. A soft body and chained mind suit you. Chances are you don't have what it takes to walk the frozen trail. Stay home and relax.

I hate painting with a broad brush, but I think the birther thing, at its root, is racist. The guy was born in Hawaii. A black guy is president. It's cool. Get over it. Just deal with it. There's nothing you could show these birther people that would shut them up.

You want to meet a bunch of really friendly people? Go to a Slayer concert. There'll be some real psychos there, but most of those people will take care of each other.

People look at things differently. Imagine going to a village in Southern Sudan and try to explain to someone there the concept of life insurance or retirement. Go to Vietnam and say retirement. Retirement in another country is your body is too racked with pain and your hands are too arthritic from the life in the rice patty fields, so you can't work anymore. So you move in with your son and his new wife takes care of you because that's how families work there.

The more you own, the more it owns you.

When was the last time you wanted to say it all to the right person To have it all come out right, to surprise yourself at how together you could be. When was the last time you ever met someone who made you want to give it all to them I mean give yourself to them. Where you couldn't express yourself enough - like you wanted to cut off one of your arms to be understood. That's it - you would cut your head off to have someone understand you. You know how pointless that one is. You know how many times you've smashed yourself to bits on the rocks.