Henry Rollins Quotes & Sayings

I have healthy disagreements with political parties I'm not aligned with, but I don't think it should be to the point where we're cursing and trying to strangle each other. — Henry Rollins

I travel because I want to know. Books and documentaries will only get you so far. If you want to know, you will have to go. — Henry Rollins

My main goal is to stay alive. To keep fooling myself into hanging around. To keep getting up every day. Right now I live without inspiration. I go day to day and do the work because it's all I know. I know that if I keep moving I stand a chance. I must keep myself going until I find a reason to live. I need one so bad. On the other hand maybe I don't. Maybe it's all bullshit. Nothing I knew from my old life can help me here. Most of the things that I believed turned out to be useless. Appendages from someone else's life.
Everything I have I would give to not know what I know. To not feel emptiness as my constant companion. To not look into this room and be reminded why I'm in it. I'm not getting enough air. The room feels so small all of a sudden. It's pathetic to be this lonely and know it. To keep breathing. To be silent and alone. And to know. — Henry Rollins

For many years, I tried to make New Year's resolutions. I made lists and shot for great heights: I would show altruism and exert moral strength, patience and all those other great attributes. — Henry Rollins

I'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 Rollins

Change is hard, but change is good. — Henry Rollins

I don't believe it mattered to Timothy McVeigh who was president or who his congressional representative was when he blew up the Murrah Building in 1995. — Henry Rollins

My feelings for you shame me into silence. — Henry Rollins

I urge you to read the Occupy Manifesto, written by the New York City General Assembly. It is unavoidably clear. This is not directionless action. If it were, the media would have moved on. — Henry Rollins

I want to change things for the better, just like everybody else. — Henry Rollins

I have heard people say that they felt closer to their parents after they have died. Maybe if I treat people as if they were dead, I could get along with them better — Henry Rollins

I don't really think about the audience much. I think of myself. Let me dig myself out of that one. — Henry Rollins

Its no surprise to me that anyone hardly tells the truth about how they feel. The smart ones keep to themselves for good reason. Why would you want to tell anyone anything that's dear to you?
Even when you like them and want nothing more than to be closer to them? It's so painful to be next to someone you feel so strongly about and know you can't say the things you want to. — Henry Rollins

If I could go to Kabul and not die, I would go back to Afghanistan as soon as I could. And, that was the most interesting place that I've been to. — Henry Rollins

In my world there would be as many public libraries as there are Starbucks. — Henry Rollins

Humans will take a rain forest and lose it and cover it with concrete. They will take the woods and turn it into a parking garage and I am not saying that's bad. I am just saying that's what we do. We occupy the planet with a vengeance. We seek to dominate it. — Henry Rollins

Love beyond the damage. — Henry Rollins

Thank you for touching me. Some of the only moments worth living were spent with you. Not you especially, the collective you. — Henry Rollins

I have had a number of less-than-enviable moments in my life when dealing with other people. I won't attempt to blunt that by saying I am not the only one. — Henry Rollins

I get tired of talking when I want to be silent. — Henry Rollins

Gay people don't have a personality problem. They have a problem with small-minded motherfuckers who can't conquer a 1-inch high curb. — Henry Rollins

You can only take me so low. After that it just doesn't hurt anymore. Your words and blows lose meaning and effect. You lose control of the situation. I can withstand any beating you can administer effortlessly but would die from receiving. How? I have waited. I have paid. I have scarred myself crawling through the guts of the machine, seeing how it works. — Henry Rollins

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. — Henry Rollins

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. — Henry Rollins

I'm a good authoritarian figure; I don't know why. 'Can you be a cop?' Sure. 'Can you be a Marine?' Absolutely. Well, at least in a movie. — Henry Rollins

Look, it's a monster. He's walking alone. Look, he's pulling something out of his pocket. He threw it on the ground. Let's go see what it is. It's a black box. You open it ... ok ... Look, it's sorrow, misery and pain. It's loneliness and longing. Boy, he'll be sorry he lost these. — Henry Rollins

There should be more natural disasters. I like those because you can't blame anyone. You can't put an earthquake on trial. You can't send a flood to the chair. Look at the fucking zoo I live in. All these bent up little players running around through the ruins saying, "Isn't this groovy and decadent? Cool!" Looking like Death and thinking they're something. I would like to help. I really would. I wonder if the guy at the gun store would give me a discount on the bullets I'll need if I told him what I was up to. — Henry Rollins

Please don't think that I am one of those squishy types who can't handle reality. I have plenty of real-world things to deal with all the time. I have deadlines, meetings, I answer the phone, I get turned down, I wait in lines and am forced to pass for normal all the time. — Henry Rollins

The 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 Rollins

I wish men weren't so fucking weak. You make me look bad. I have to answer for all the bullshit you get up to. I have to endure women saying shit like, "Ok, there's so much testosterone in the air," when she sees some men fixing a car. 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 hate having to be put in the same category as with these pieces of shit that wouldn't make it in the jungle. Little boys in men's bodies. No wonder women hate them. I do too. Fuck it. I hate all of you. People are disgusting. — Henry Rollins

I think a lot of Americans have never been all that hungry. They've never had war on their shore, and they've never suffered the way other cultures have suffered. I'm not saying we should go suffer. Not at all. I'm saying we should be more aware of how other cultures exist. — Henry Rollins

He said that hate makes the world go round
People are afraid of what they really want
They make enemies of all the things that they would like to be
They condition themselves to not embrace what they are
Love is a clinging nausea
I tried to disagree with him
It was no use
I never saw a more honest look in anyone's eyes. — Henry Rollins

I'm mellower now, I'm over 50. But I don't think I'm too mellow. I'm still angry at a lot of things. — Henry Rollins

Marriage equality is a term so ridiculous on its face that when you hear it mentioned, you would think you were in Riyadh. Years from now, perhaps we can lose the equality part, the same-sex part and call it what it is - marriage. — Henry Rollins

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. — Henry Rollins

Sometimes I wish I could be like Teflon. I always admired that stuff. Water beads up on it and slides off, nothing sticks. You gotta have a little of that to be able to deal with what's out there. But ... Teflon takes a shot and shows the damage. It cannot heal itself. That is our strength: we can heal. We can make ourselves stronger. You can be a bright light in a sea of shit, doesn't matter how big the light is as long as it shines. Get a hold of some of that and don't blow your brains out no matter how good an idea it sounds like at the time. Like when you wake up around three in the morning panicking from an attack from some unseen horror and you want to get out so bad. — Henry Rollins

If you watch a stretch of TV for a few hours, there is a good chance you'll hear me on some commercial or in some documentary or on a cartoon as some voice of a character. — Henry Rollins

I think that Goldman Sachs and the Pentagon determine more of America's outcome then any president or any congress, that sounds a bit cynical, but I think I am right. — Henry Rollins

My unconditional sure thing is that I don't have one. — Henry Rollins

I could fall in love with a cruel desert that kills without passion, a canyon full of scorpions, one thousand blinding arctic storms, a century sealed in a cave, a river of molten salt flowing down my throat. But never with you. — Henry Rollins

It's hard to get people at a record company to talk about music. They don't seem to want to talk about music, it's all marketing, and that's part of a record, you gotta get it out there, people have gotta hear it, but you could do it in a way that's not repulsive. — Henry Rollins

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. — Henry Rollins

Muscle mass does not always equal strength. Strength is kindness and sensitivity. Strength is understanding that your power is both physical and emotional. That it comes from the body and the mind. And the heart. - from The Iron — Henry Rollins

August used to be a sad month for me. As the days went on, the thought of school starting weighed heavily upon my young frame. That, coupled with the oppressive heat and humidity of my native Washington, D.C., only seemed to heighten the misery. — Henry Rollins

I love capitalism. It rewards me for being brave - it awards me for being innovative and thinking out of the box. — Henry Rollins

Zappa warned you of the threat of mediocrity in music. — Henry Rollins

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. — Henry Rollins

You can get away with a lot of shit if it looks like it's all you know how to do. — Henry Rollins

It hurts to let go. Sometimes it seems the harder you try to hold on to 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 coma back. You're left so alone that you can't explain. Damn, there's nothing like that, is there? I've been there and you have too. You're nodding your head. — Henry Rollins

It's hard for me to sympathize with a young person who chooses to go into the military because they know where they're going. I think we need to start depopulating the military. — Henry Rollins

In my world there would be as many libraries as there are Starbucks. — Henry Rollins

The reality is that we are going to have problems with water in this century. And the fact that we are going to have problems with fossil fuel is a given. — Henry Rollins

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

I'm so burned out, the only person I can stand is myself.
I'm the only one I would put through this.
Wheels and wings,
The ride is everything.
I'm all I've got.
I'm all I can take.
Another day has destroyed a part of me.
So far so good. — Henry Rollins

Basically, 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 Rollins

I once asked Ozzy Osbourne, truly one of my favorite people in the world, if he was cool with singing Black Sabbath songs year after year, whether he was performing with Black Sabbath or out on a solo tour. He said it was great. — Henry Rollins

I don't mean to be arrogant and I really appreciate my fans but talking about what I am doing is not something I'm good at. I do what I do and that's it. I want to get back to my work and do more of it instead of talking about it. — Henry Rollins

Damn, I was lonely that autumn. I wished for a girl I could hang out with. I never
really did anything to meet girls, too shy, too fucked up. Autumn makes
me think of women. — Henry Rollins

I try to be well informed. I don't know how well I do all the time, but I try nonetheless. — Henry Rollins

If I hear, 'Be afraid of Tehran,' I'm like, 'I'd better go to Tehran.' — Henry Rollins

I slept in Uday Hussein's bed - that was just so strange. Went to Saddam's palace, was in a mortar attack - crazy stuff. And like three days later you're back in traffic on Sunset Boulevard. It's all kind of behind you, which is kind of perfect for a guy like me because I can take that and turn it into quite the tale. — Henry Rollins

She lit my soul and inhaled deeply
Flicking my ashes occasionally. — Henry Rollins

To see change in your own area code is very powerful. There's a little orphanage down the street from my company, and we donate $1 from the sale of each CD we sell to the orphanage. — Henry Rollins

I've said it before and I say it again: A man's got to do what a brainless idiot's got to do. — Henry Rollins

One day, I stopped hating. I ceased all meaningless activity. I completed the circle. I Set my sights straight. Like an Arrow I flew. I stopped acting. I got tired of playing with you. Random violence and destruction Because my reason for living, my out, My excuse. What is your excuse? Destruction. Without hate, without fear, Without judgement. I am no better Than you. No-one knows this better Than I do. I just got tired of playing Parlor Games. — Henry Rollins

When a band becomes as truly iconic as the Velvet Underground, there will often be a box set released, overburdened with mediocre material that dilutes what was fine left on its own. — Henry Rollins

I 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 Rollins

Joe Strummer, Johnny Rotten, and Ian MacKaye were all people who really made me see things differently. — Henry Rollins

I am the flying saucer man from another world trapped on yours until they come to rescue me. One day the saucer will land. Jimi Hendrix and John Coltrane will open the hatch and tell me to get in before someone tries to blow up the ship. I'll just ask what took them so long. Within seconds we'll be out of here. — Henry Rollins

Music keeps you young. Having music in your life keeps you open to things. — Henry Rollins

In blues music, there's a lot of borrowing, so it's often difficult to identify the originator of a song. — Henry Rollins

I beg young people to travel ... — Henry Rollins

I think in rural settings, people have a different appreciation for animals than might the city dweller. In parts of India where poisonous snake bite is common, people have a much different value system. I live in a city. I'm not thinking about wolves, lions, etc. — Henry Rollins

Texas is a hotbed of insanely good bands and musicians. — Henry Rollins

When Black Flag and DOA and all those bands were touring in the early 80s, it was kind of a forest and you just kind of got your way through it. Now it's like a six lane highway with Starbucks every twenty meters. That's just civilization. — Henry Rollins

It's hard to get along with people. As much as you try to like them and accept them as individuals, it becomes difficult because they keep getting out of line and wasting your time. — Henry Rollins

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. — Henry Rollins

I think the U.K. is an amazing place and has been extremely good to me. Some of my favorite and most-listened-to bands are from England. I have met many good people there and have been in front of some of the most loyal audiences I have ever encountered. — Henry Rollins

Hating someone is giving them too much, just leave them alone. — Henry Rollins

The kid who throws his spaghetti from the high chair onto his father's face, he's pushing back. He's sticking it to the man as he sees it. I like that. So that is punk. — Henry Rollins

Most of the people who call me a sellout were 7 when I was down face-first in the punk trenches. — Henry Rollins

I think marriage is a boring and fault-ridden contractual obligation. — Henry Rollins

When you're little and you don't have much dough, you have to innovate. You have to be sharp. — Henry Rollins

There is a lot to say about what Bikini Kill and other 'riot grrrl' bands were able to achieve when they first set out. They were not some momentary, convulsive, creative spasm of independent music. There was a very real, relevant point of view being expressed. — Henry Rollins

There's something about being under-rested and knowing that the situation is going to remain that way for quite some time that makes things more meaningful. — Henry Rollins

While I have no empirical evidence to back this up, I bet that the number of homosexual people per thousand has not fluctuated all that much over the centuries. I do not believe the dented wisdom my father used to extol, that homosexuality was a sure sign of a civilization in decline. — Henry Rollins

Guns are part of the American identity. — Henry Rollins

I have been curious about Haiti for many years. The history of the country is as fascinating as it is turbulent. — Henry Rollins

You don't have to twist my arm to work. — Henry Rollins

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

Shirley Sherrod seems like a good and dedicated person. — Henry Rollins

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

There 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 Rollins

Texas is as odd as it is vast. — Henry Rollins

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. — Henry Rollins

Every politician, every president gets votes by getting people that don't like him to like him. That's why politicians are slippery: because they talk out of both sides of their mouth. — Henry Rollins

Just understand that the end began long ago We got here just in time Look All the squares in the sidewalks were already there All these strangers have more money than you do All the good riffs have been taken And everyone is so scared Murder is commonplace I don't even flinch at the gunshots outside my window I feel lonely without them — Henry Rollins

I've never raped or killed anybody, or hurt a kid. I've done all the more inept, high-volume stuff - like, "Whoops, sorry I came in your hair. Don't worry, I won't use your name when I tell this story on stage." — Henry Rollins

The world's a better place since I chose music. — Henry Rollins

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