Henry Rollins's Quotes

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

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

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

And I love the hate mail I get, the unsigned, misspelled letters I get telling me to go back to Russia or wherever.

August, the summer's last messenger of misery, is a hollow actor.

Every summer, around late July and into August, I find myself in Europe, performing at any festival that will have me.

Giving a good performance, giving it all is what it's all about. I love to perform.

I can deal with people who watch me on stage but I am not good in communicating with people any other way than through my work.

I can't remember that I ever had just a minute of stage fright.

I don't want to fail the audience. I don't want to let them down.

I forged myself out of a vacuum. I crawl along the highway on hacked off stumps year after year. Some wonder how and why. I never do.

I guess, topic to topic, you could consider me a left-leaning person.

I have not the smarts or patience for political office.

I just travel the world with my backpack and my cameras and a bunch of Clif bars.

I love to go on stage and sing.

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

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

I'm most comfortable on stage.

I'm not artistic nor am I all that creative.

If I had to perform in a comedy club I would bomb; I would be trying too hard.

It is just that I don't want a wife and I don't want kids.

Most Americans are very cool people.

Most poets are elitist dregs more concerned with proving their skill with a dictionary than communicating ideas with impact.

Now, if someone wants to spit on me, I just roll up the window of my BMW 540i.

So, one way or another, I found myself in a few movies. I take it seriously when I'm on the set, but I don't take myself seriously as an actor.

There is no way you are going to be forgiven for blowing up a village and killing a bunch of people.

There's no rule that you have to like Henry Rollins the musician or the actor.

To this day, my haircut is the number two clippers, which I apply to myself every month.

War is very sad and small life is pathetically fragile at times.

When 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.

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

So I'm more at home with my backpack, sleeping in a hotel room or on a bus or on an airplane, than I am necessarily on a bed. It's weird being here. It feels like I'm standing next to my real life.

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.

I'm 36 and if I met a woman of my own age and married her, I'd also be marrying her former life, her past. It might be OK for some people - I don't want to judge it or anything - but it's not for me. It would destroy my creativity.

This is my 25th year of being on stage. A lot of people who I kind of toed up to the starting line with are no longer in this position. I feel very, very lucky.

I don't mind The Boss. I think he's an honest guy. I have some of his records, not all of them. I've met a couple of the E-Street guys, and they seem really cool.

I just get things done instead of talking about getting them done. I don't go out and party. I don't smoke, drink or do drugs and I'm not married, that leaves a lot of time for my work.

I mean I appreciate fan mail and that the people like what I am doing but I can't answer it. If I would answer 25 letters a day I would be just a guy answering mail and not an artist anymore.

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.

I get angry about stuff, I get very emotionally intense about stuff and that's how I get it out - with books, with the band, on my own onstage, but it's always kind of a wail.

I 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.

I'm most in my element on tour, with a gig that day, like today. I'm on the road where I am supposed to be. I will be where I'm supposed to be at nighttime, on stage, in front of people, doing my thing.

I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.

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

Don't do anything by half. If you love someone, love them with all your soul. When you go to work, work your ass off. When you hate someone, hate them until it hurts.

Yes, 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.

Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.

Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.

I don't believe in fate or destiny. I believe in various degrees of hatred, paranoia, and abandonment. However much of that gets heaped upon you doesn't matter - it's only a matter of how much you can take and what it does to you.

To hate is to show you still care, who needs that, focus on what's really important.

You need a little bit of insanity to do great things.

Life will not break your heart. It'll crush it.

I 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.

My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.

I've made some great mistakes in my life, but, you know, they were honest mistakes.

Being an artist is dragging your innermost feelings out, giving a piece of yourself, no matter in which art form, in which medium.

Maybe I'm ego-tripping, but I don't find myself a particularly horrible person, so I don't think I need to hold back anything I think or feel.

Sometimes the truth hurts. And sometimes it feels real good.

When you start to doubt yourself the real world will eat you alive.

Hope is the last thing a person does before they are defeated.

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.

As long as I tell the truth I feel that nobody can touch me.

Nothing brings people together more, then mutual hatred.

Keep your blood clean, your body lean, and your mind sharp.

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

I am an optimist because I want to change things for the better and I know that blood has to be spilled and disharmony and cruelty are necessary to do that.

The only difference between me and others is that they think they can change something with cute little poems, nice cards or embracing trees and being nice to little lapdogs.