Like a lot of inwardly drawn young people, I spent a lot of time in libraries. At my high school, I often spent my lunch breaks there.
Henry RollinsI'm not a thrill seeker. I'm not looking to get kidnapped. I'm not looking to get a shot at. I've been shot at. I didn't like it.
Henry RollinsI come from a minimum wage working world, as we all did for at least some part of our lives, and that is never out of my rearview. I've never forgotten how much your feet hurt after you've stood on them for like 12 hours. And how the drudgery of a job you hate craps on your entire life; how you treat other people, how you treat yourself, and it really was getting to me.
Henry RollinsI see violence in myself; I've done some pretty violent things in my lifetime and I've been around some pretty severe violence all the way up to homicide.
Henry RollinsDon't go to summer camp. Bury your parents in the backyard and have the place to yourself.
Henry RollinsWe all learn lessons in life. Some stick, some don't. I have always learned more from rejection and failure than from acceptance and success.
Henry RollinsConsumerism is at once the engine of America and simultaneously one of the most revealing indicators of our collective shallowness.
Henry RollinsSeasonal change in Los Angeles is often a very subtle thing. It's not as if we finally stop having to shovel the snow out of our driveways and can put our parkas back in the closet.
Henry RollinsBasically, men are afraid of women and can’t handle the fact that they came out of the same thing they spend the rest of their lives trying to get back into.
Henry RollinsI have never experienced anything like walking out onto the stage of an oversold venue and, before the first note is struck, realizing that there is not going to be enough oxygen for all of us.
Henry RollinsI believe in North, South, East, West, The seasons, life and death, geography. That which is provable, absolute and most of all, functional. I believe in things that can kill me.
Henry RollinsI've never heard Daft Punk; I've never heard a track of theirs in my life. They're the two guys with motorcycle helmets on?
Henry RollinsI would never be innovative enough to "blaze my own trail," I'm just trying to be interesting. So I don't look to anyone else as far as inspiration.
Henry RollinsA text conversation is a short exchange of often grossly truncated language that corresponds to a thought made all the more shallow by the process.
Henry RollinsGirls aren't beautiful, they're pretty. Beautiful is too heavy a word to assign to a girl. Women are beautiful because their faces show that they know they have lost something and picked up something else.
Henry RollinsSometimes it's not catastrophic. Sometimes you only come to the bottom of your coffee cup. Sometimes you have a good day. No one wants to know. No one wants to tell you about theirs either. You might somehow take it. Turn it against them. See the flaw. You always tell them the whole thing sucks. It keeps you alive. They figure if you're out there having a rotten time, everything's fine and you're doing your part. No one will ever try to take your bad times away from you but they'll come swarming for your happiness.
Henry RollinsThink about it: No matter who you are, the past plays a large part in your life. I am all about living in the present as best as I can. Try as I might, there is only so much I am able to achieve on this front.
Henry RollinsWe Californians can watch the Weather Channel for images of winter's brutality unleashed upon our fellow Americans and thank our lucky stars we don't have to contend with it.
Henry RollinsThe Internet, the camera cellphone and the like have not only sped up the world's information uptake, but they have cheapened that which they capture.
Henry RollinsTo get a human through a life, lives of broken bones, knock-me-over-with-a-feather susceptibility to myriad viruses, and whatever else might befall someone will cost money.
Henry RollinsI am very ambitious in a way, in that I'm not trying to be the richest guy or whatever. I just really like my work.
Henry RollinsIf the Constitution was a movie, the Preamble would be the trailer, the First Amendment the establishing shot, the 13th the crowd pleaser and the 14th the ultimate hero scene.
Henry RollinsSome people see Black Friday as a much-needed break for their wallet. I see it as retail outlets showing the customers the full weight of their contempt. The frenzy to buy cheap crap from China, the human downgrade of people fighting with each other over items they can probably live without, to me, is an insult.
Henry RollinsVoting is completely important. People in America think democracy is a given. I think of it as an ecosystem, and what gets in the way of it is politicians and apathy.
Henry RollinsRetirement 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.
Henry RollinsLife is a hurdle and you'll never clear it. Death is the end of the ride and you fear it.
Henry RollinsTrying to write music, be in a band and keep it all happening is one of the hardest, morale-destroying, heartbreaking things you will ever try to do - and that's when it's going well.
Henry RollinsI have no artistic sensibilities. I wish I did. It is probably really cool. I have work habits and work ethic. For me, all the things I do are jobs.
Henry RollinsI think that humans have a huge capacity to carry pain and sadness. There are things that haunt us our entire lives; we are unable to let them go. The good times seem almost effervescent and dreamlike in comparison with the times that didn't go so well.
Henry RollinsShe touches me The jungle lights up with incinerating fire Looks like a flaming serpent I look into her eyes I see a movie flickering Car crashes People kicking corpses Men ripping their tracheas out and shaking them at the sky I think to myself: I don’t want to survive this one I want to burn up in the wreckage Cooking flesh in the jungle
Henry RollinsIf an American company has a drop of patriotic blood coursing through its system, then surely it would set up in America and employ Americans, right?
Henry RollinsWhen the movie comes out, what anybody thinks of it doesn't really matter to me. I don't go to the wrap party. I don't go to the premiere.
Henry RollinsI've never killed anybody... but I've definitely thought about it. But that's how we are. That's what happens when you put people together and put them into societies and cultures and have laws and the idea of justice.
Henry RollinsPeople are best on records and books because you can turn them off or put them back on the shelf.
Henry RollinsThe world’s a better place since I chose music. I like the physical aspect of it, the volume and the intensity of it. It’s loud and hard. I like all that because inside me I feel like screaming.
Henry RollinsIf there is one set of laws, one Constitution for every citizen, its protections hopefully applied equally to all, then why do the results seem to differ so radically? What do you call that? Look around - you're living in it.
Henry Rollins