Henry Rollins Quotes

We are occupants. No one has any lasting purchase on life or on the planet.

I've enjoyed, to a certain extent, any country I've been in, of course like Serbia and Croatia can be very restrictive and oppressive, and frustrating, but they're still very beautiful.

As far as poetry, I don't know if I've ever written any. I've read a lot. I just write and it comes out in different forms and shapes. I don't know if I'm any good at it I just really go for it and I'm very prolific book wise only because I own the company. No one tells me 'no' around here.

Why let your fury lay deep inside you, sullenly boiling your blood into silent steam and griding your bones to dust? I it not better to thrust it out with great velocity from every pore, with your every action? Let your actions speak your legend. The physical is the manifestation of the spirit. Let your spirit be teeming with fury. Let your strength be unusual and controlled. The average is the borderline that keeps mere men in their place. Those who step over the line are heroes by the very act. Go.

Sometimes it seems the harder you try to hold onto something or someone the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of criminal for having felt, for having wanted. For having wanted to be wanted. It confuses you because you think that your feelings were wrong and it makes you feel so small because it’s so hard to keep it inside when you let it out and it doesn’t come back. You’re left so alone that you can’t explain.

It's sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew.

Each year, every city in the world that can should have a multiday festival. More people meeting each other, digging new types of music, new foods, new ideas. You want to stop having so many wars? This could be a step in the right direction.

if i was a woman these days, i'd be killing motherfuckers. my handgun would never cool and my hands would be covered in testicular blood. i would have a horrible reputation with a lot of men because i would be calling them on their weak bullshit left and right.

I don't get a rush from anything. I did music as hard as I could. Acting for me at least, is a far more restrained performance than music. It requires a lot of skill and discipline. I'm not any good at it but I enjoy trying to be good at it.

I will never say the things that I want to say to you. I know the damage it would do. I love you more than I hate my loneliness and pain.

The blues is losing someone you love and not having enough money to immerse yourself in drink.

If I had to live my life in anticipation of what others thought of me, little would get done.

We city dwellers, we residents of Los Angeles and the surrounding areas, are for the most part urbanized to some extent. We know deadlines, start times and traffic.

As far as what people think of me, maybe my stuff should just be put online for free downloads when I'm gone.

If the truth is told how I want to be remembered... as someone who cared. Someone who worked really hard and someone who didn't sit around.

South Sudan is one of the most hard-put places in the world.

I'd like to be a better writer, but I have no dreams to direct or do a screenplay. And I'd love to have a big starring role in a movie because the paycheck would be bigger. That's the only reason I do films.

Almost all human who can form a sentence will eventually let you in on the fact that their lives are very difficult and sometimes very hard to manage.

There's a lot of mountain climbers trapped inside of bodies of people behind the counter at Kinko's.

Rock is ironic in that, up to a certain point, you can get better and better at it if you don't mind possibly looking more and more ridiculous.

The most interesting place by far was Afghanistan. Just because it is a place that I cannot see myself living. The hardness of the people and the history of the country is just so completely intense.

My first introduction to African music was by my mother, who bought the 'Pata Pata' album by the great Miriam Makeba when it came out. Now that is an album. What a voice.

Bono actually gets a lot of substantial work done. The guy really does put a lot of things together and, while I'm not a fan of his music, I greatly applaud his humanitarian efforts.

I would like to be able to gently drift in and out of existence when I wanted to.

The material you work with is that which you will come to resemble. That which you work against will always work against you, including yourself.

Sometimes when you meet a musician you are a fan of, and he or she isn't the friendliest person, you walk away from the experience wondering if you will ever be able to listen to their music again.

Nietzsche, who you don't spend too much time with after the age of seventeen, did have that one great line about "he who stares into the abyss must know that the abyss also stares into him" and I never really understood that until my friend got killed and you really get your head around the idea of what horror means. It's a truly awful thing, to really, kind of have that understanding of things and when you really peer into that.

One person's roar is another's whine, just as one person's music is another's unendurable noise.

I'd like to rid myself of writing, to surrender, to release the venom. And hopefully at some point, I'll be a happy, well-adjusted guy and I'll have no need for all that 'art.'

I like the idea of someone else’s love safely sealed in a song or a book.

You can say, "Well, I have a question," and someone will say, "Oh, so you hate America." And it has nothing to do with the discussion at all.

Amy Winehouse was not a person I ever met, and I can't say that I am overly conversant in all of her music. I do have her albums, and years ago, when I first heard her sing, I thought she was extraordinary. The tone of her voice, her phrasing, her raw appearance - these qualities were extremely captivating to me.

I like the idea of going out with a woman and not doing anything, and just eating dinner and talking, and that's cool, too. So, someone might look at me and say, "No way, man. He's just banging strippers." And I do that, but not all the time.

Since the last tour I have done a lot of extensive travel to Iraq, Kuwait, Siberia, South Korea and other places and picked up some hopefully interesting stories. We are living in interesting times and as bad as things are, I draw considerable inspiration from some of the things I'm seeing and people I'm meeting. I'm looking forward to getting out on the road and talking about it all.

I know I was a generic dysfunctional child, but I think a lot of people are.

I don't hate people - not remotely other than they make you crazy in traffic, but as I get older I kind of see more and more why people do what they do.

Castle Face Records, run by The Oh Sees main man, Johnny Dwyer is always worth checking in with.

My father did not rock. He just earned and hated. Don't end up like this man.

You don't have to twist my arm to work.

After I left D.C. to join Black Flag, I felt I was in a band.

I live my life through the prism of capitalism and physiological limits and eventualities.

I think it is incumbent on anyone who can to lift human dignity to the highest possible levels, maintaining one's own and helping to raise that of others.

I'm not in a position where I get to pick and choose roles. I usually go on auditions in long lines and embarrass myself in front of casting directors, and with a lump in my throat and my ears burning, I walk past reception and smirking actors as I go to the parking garage and go back on the highway.

The tasks I set out for myself are what I do to beat the perfect pointlessness of life.

I do my best to limit the amount of compromise in my life so I have more time to do what I want. Not hanging out with many people really helps. I am not a people person and I spend a great deal of time on my own and in this environment, I get a lot done.

After... The seas have dried out The trains have come to a shrieking holt The hounds of the abyss cease to howl The prisons have closed their doors The pigs have no one to arrest except themselves The drugs no longer have an effect When it's all over All I'll remember is you

I hate it when men go to strip bars. It lowers the rest of us that know if a man has to pay to see a woman naked, he is a loser and probably should get weeded out.

I think politicians get hamstrung by the nature of politics when the private sector can really do great things.