100 Quotes by Henry Rollins
Henry Rollins, a multifaceted musician and spoken word artist, emerged as a prominent figure in the punk and alternative music scenes. As the frontman of the band Black Flag, Rollins' intense and raw performances resonated with audiences seeking an outlet for their frustrations and disillusionment. Beyond music, Rollins is known for his thought-provoking spoken word performances and his candid exploration of personal experiences and societal issues. His writings and speeches reflect his commitment to self-improvement, social justice, and the power of authenticity. Rollins' ability to connect with listeners on a deep and personal level, coupled with his unapologetic individualism, has solidified his status as an influential and inspiring figure in the realms of music and spoken word.
Henry Rollins Quotes
Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.
No such thing as spare time, no such thing as free time, no such thing as down time. All you got is life time. Go.
I have found the Iron to be my greatest friend. It never freaks out on me, never runs. Friends may come and go. But two hundred pounds is always two hundred pounds
It's sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew.
Go without a coat when it's cold; find out what cold is. Go hungry; keep your existence lean. Wear away the fat, get down to the lean tissue and see what it's all about. The only time you define your character is when you go without. In times of hardship, you find out what you're made of and what you're capable of. If you're never tested, you'll never define you character.
I want a soul mate who can sit me down, shut me up, tell me ten things I don’t already know, and make me laugh. I don’t care what you look like, just turn me on. And if you can do that, I will follow you on bloody stumps through the snow. I will nibble your mukluks with my own teeth. I will do your windows. I will care about your feelings. Just have something in there.
If I lose the light of the sun, I will write by candlelight, moonlight, no light. If I lose paper and ink, I will write in blood on forgotten walls. I will write always. I will capture nights all over the world and bring them to you
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.
Strength is the product of struggle, you must do what others don't to achieve what others won't.
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.
There’s one thing about Black Sabbath which should not be understated: If Black Sabbath is missing any one of its members it’s no longer Black Sabbath.
We all learn lessons in life. Some stick, some don't. I have always learned more from rejection and failure than from acceptance and success.
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.
Listen to the stage manager and get on stage when they tell you to. No one has time for the rock star bullshit. None of the techs backstage care if you're David Bowie or the milkman. When you act like a jerk, they are completely unimpressed with the infantile display that you might think comes with your dubious status. They were there hours before you building the stage, and they will be there hours after you leave tearing it down. They should get your salary, and you should get theirs.
I beg young people to travel. If you don't have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown. Eat interesting food. Dig some interesting people. Have an adventure. Be careful. Come back and you're going to see your country differently, you're going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You're going to get a sense of what globalization looks like.
Pizza makes me think that anything is possible.
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.
If I had to live my life in anticipation of what others thought of me, little would get done.
Weakness is what brings ignorance, cheapness, racism, homophobia, desperation, cruelty, brutality, all these things that will keep a society chained to the ground, one foot nailed to the floor.
In my world there would be as many public libraries as there are Starbucks.
I would like to be able to gently drift in and out of existence when I wanted to.
Knowledge without mileage equals bullshit.
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.
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
When you start to doubt yourself the real world will eat you alive.
All by yourself, unable to express the pain of your distress with your deeper inside. You alienate yourself and everybody else.
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.
Want a good body? Work at it. Want to be a success? Work at it. Want to be truly exceptional? Be a touch insane. You need a little bit of insanity to do great things.
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 am a veteran of the War on Christmas. I am just emerging from a battlefield strewn with dead trees and torn shreds of brightly colored wrapping paper.
Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.
In the worst of times the best among us never lose their moral compass, and that is how they emerge relatively unscathed.
They say true love only comes around once and you have to hold out and be strong until then. I have been waiting. I have been searching. I am a man under the moon, walking the streets of earth until dawn. There's got to be someone for me. It's not too much to ask. Just someone to be with. Someone to love. Someone to give everything to. Someone.
Disappointment always arrives before hope and the darkness of night comes before the dawn. Don't lose hope now because things will brighter with the new day.
How memories lie to us. How time coats the ordinary with gold. How it breaks the heart to go back and attempt to re-live them. How crushed we are when we discover that the gold was merely gold-plating thinly coated over lead, chalk and peeling paint.
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.
There is no better way to fight weakness than with strength. Once the mind and body have been awakened to their true potential, it's impossible to turn back.
Keep your blood clean, your body lean, and your mind sharp.
Life will not break your heart. It'll crush it.
My love runs deeper than the wounds.
I prefer to work out alone. It enables me to concentrate on the lessons that the Iron has for me.
When life hands you a lemon, say, 'Oh yeah, I like lemons! What else ya got?
If you have an idea of what you want to do in your future, you must go at it with almost monastic obsession. [...] You have to go at it single-mindedly and let nothing get in your way.
It's so painful to be next to someone you feel strongly about and know you can't say the things you want to.
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.
Nothing brings people together more, than mutual hatred.
If you hate your parents, the man or the establishment, don't show them up by getting wasted and wrapping your car around a tree. If you really want to rebel against your parents, out-learn them, outlive them, and know more than they do.
Girls 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.
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.
I definitely learned a lesson this time. I know that I can be broken. I am not as tough as I thought. I see it now. At this point, it's the only thing good that came out of all of this. I know myself better now and know what I have to do.
There’s got to be someone for me. It’s not too much to ask. Just someone to be with. Someone to love. Someone to give everything to. Someone.
What goes best with a cup of coffee? Another cup.
I want to meet a woman that will make me stop and listen to what she has to say. I want a woman who will make my jaw drop in awe. A woman that has little time for me. One who does not throw herself at me. One who respects herself who has a sense of herself. Where is she
After having read a lot of fiction, literature, whatever you want to call it, from Wolfe to Houellebecq, I think you have to have an understanding and insight of the human condition that is informed and motivated by a desire to immerse yourself in the human world and bring these stories to bear.
Love heals scars love left.
Do it or don't. It's amazing how many things in life are that easy.
I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts.
People are best on records and books because you can turn them off or put them back on the shelf.
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.
Some soldier will say, 'You know, sir, you and I have some political disagreements, but I'm glad you came all the way out here.' And you know, you say, 'Well, maybe one day you'll see the light but I'm glad to be out here with you.'
What if Americans were all judged by the actions of the Bush administration and people did not know the truth? That America is full of people who are, at present, poorly represented and poorly catered to by the media.
A great way to learn about your country is to leave it.
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.
When the Iron doesn't want to come off the mat, it's the kindest thing it can do for you. If it flew up and went through the ceiling, it wouldn't teach you anything.
It is impossible, after a certain point, to go back to a previous way of life, a previous way of thinking.
I am a pretty crazy person, so it's best for me to be on my own most of the time.
My unconditional sure thing is that I don't have one.
She 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
I never thought about getting any tattoos removed.
I've made some great mistakes in my life, but, you know, they were honest mistakes.
Don't do anything by half. If you love someone, love them with all your soul.
You have to get away from them. You have to get as far away as you can otherwise they'll kill you with their lives. They don't know what they do. They are careless with themselves and they take too much for granted. They make their shortcomings your problem. The only way to keep your head above it and heal your wounds is to crawl away.
It'll destroy you if you try to make it mean anything to anyone but yourself.
I want you bad like a natural disaster. You are all I see. You are the only one I want to know.
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.
I'm trying to be confrontational and direct. If I lack directness then I only have myself to blame because I lack the skills to make my point clear.
If I hear, 'Be afraid of Tehran,' I'm like, 'I'd better go to Tehran.'
You must never lower yourself to being a person you don't like.
I'm constantly around people that talk a lot but say nothing. A sad case.
The times I have tried to get close to someone resulted in me feeling threatened and weak.
Somewhere someone is thinking of you. Someone is calling you an angel. This person is using celestial colors to paint your image. Someone is making you into a vision so beautiful that it can only live in the mind.
You have to realize there are other people, other economies, governments, cultures, religions, and destinies going on at the same time as yours. You have to widen the scope of your lens and start seeing more.
I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention.
I think of the thrill of an intelligent woman talking just to me.
The first several years of my life were used to upload incredible amounts of fear, and I just became afraid of everything. I was afraid of my parents, afraid of my classmates, afraid of the streets of Washington, D.C. I would flinch at every gesture.
I don't hate the government. I don't think the Second Amendment is being infringed upon.
As you do with any band you're in, you get to know everyone too well all too soon. When you're crammed into a small space, proximity leads to familiarity.
The blues is losing someone you love and not having enough money to immerse yourself in drink.
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.
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.
Through the years, I have combined meditation, action, and the Iron into a single strength. I believe that when the body is strong, the mind thinks strong thoughts. Time spent away from the Iron makes my mind degenerate. I wallow in a thick depression. My body shuts down my mind.
It wasn't until my late twenties that I learned that by working out I had given myself a great gift. I learned that nothing good comes without work and a certain amount of pain. When I finish a set that leaves me shaking, I know more about myself. When something gets bad, I know it can't be as bad as that workout.
It's one thing to buy a copy of 'Atlas Shrugged.' You actually have to read it to get anything out of it.
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 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.
Spending time in Calcutta [India] really did a number on me. The way life and death are almost the same thing, the way poverty is dealt with, the sheer number of dead bodies you see, it's all pretty overwhelming.
The first Van Halen album makes Johnny Rotten out to be what he really was and still is: a hairdresser.
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.
For the last 30-plus years, I have been doing one long, uninterrupted improv.
Collecting records is, for many, beyond a hobby.
I don't want to fail the audience. I don't want to let them down.
I get tired of talking when I want to be silent.
Smart people make good choices. They dig science and say 'no' to the invasion of sovereign nations for the pleasure of corporations.
The ones who don't do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down.
You can find me in the frozen mood section.
Life is weird, great and dangerous.
The best revenge is to always survive yourself.
The only safety is in the middle of total misunderstanding and deception.
I don't have talent. I have tenacity.
I think marriage is a boring and fault-ridden contractual obligation.
We humans are hard to deal with. We are a loud, complex and demanding bunch. Often, we are best dealt with from a safe distance and for only brief periods of time. This could be why a lot of marriages fail.
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.
To my ears, jazz sounds better in warm weather and after the sun has gone down. While I will listen to some of my favorite jazz records in cooler weather, it's the warmer nights that really make them come alive. Something about those sounds and the heat of the night really makes it happen for me.
Rush Limbaugh makes money getting simpleminded people to feel good about their intellectually undernourished brain spasms. He's very good at it, and I scarcely believe a fraction of what he says.
The destructive power of a lie is stronger than the truth.
You might as well enjoy the day - you never know when and how painfully it could all end.
I 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.
I find it takes a lot of strength to endure myself.
I don't try to be angry to prove something. I wouldn't try to intimidate you for any reason unless you were trying to intimidate me, and then I would show you that you can't do that to me.
Do you know why Albert Camus was so prolific? He wrote to keep from screaming.
I just want to be able to stand up straight for a little while before I get cut down.
I feel like a visitor that got left behind by his ride.
Keep me preoccupied Keep me busy, busy, busy So I won't have to think I don't want to think Because it only brings me pain I just keep running away from My problems Keep me busy Give me a million things to do So I can keep running away from myself.
In winter, I plot and plan. In spring, I move.
The fact is, in the minds of many, Trayvon Martin received the appropriate punishment for a true crime: He was black, male and dared to walk outside. In life, young Trayvon was just a teenager; in death, he has been transformed into a scary, lurking, suspicious, prone-to-violence spook.
The more you own, the more it owns you.
Youth is fleeting and life is short, you might as well strike hard. Anything else is just average.
I will do my best to dodge tonight's depression Hide in sleep Damage myself in dreams Wake up older, slightly more used.
Sometimes I would get invited to a party or to go out to dinner by one of them and I would decline. Part of me wanted to go, but those kind of outings always made me feel even more alienated than usual. Hearing them talk made me feel lonely and hateful at the same time. Lonely because I didn't fit in, never did. When I was reminded, it hurt. And hateful because it reaffirmed what I already knew, that I was alone and on the outside.
We Americans are hard on almost everything. We are hard on our vehicles, our marriages and our heroes. Mostly, however, we are hard on ourselves.
People like Jefferson, Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony and M. L. K. are larger than life to me. I find myself staring at photographs of Lincoln almost in disbelief that he was a man who walked the earth and not merely some fiction writer's creation.
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.
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.
Am I self-righteous? Why not? It's not like I can count on you to be righteous for me.
You can't get your head around something if you're yelling.
Live music is the cure for what ails ya.
I believe that capitalism, at least how it's used by major corporations, and environmental concerns are in opposition. To be ecologically aware, productivity of many things would slow down at least for awhile. Stockholders don't want to hear about the saving of the whales or some stream in Kentucky. They want a return on their investment.
I'm not harmful, just introspective. You can probably think I'm weird, but it's not harmful weird.
With a book, there's no volume to turn up. You're very naked with a book.
The easy solution isn't the solution, it's the problem.
One of the odd enjoyments in life is to be alone in a room full of people. To have them there as unknowing human filler in your wide shot.
It is amazing to hear grown-up people rationalize homophobia and discrimination. The lengths they go to trying to prove their points take reason to its breaking point.
Everything I do, writing, touring, travelling, it all comes from the punk and hardcore attitude, from that expression - from being open to try things but relying on yourself, taking what you have into the battle and making of it what you will, hoping you can figure it out as you go. Make some sense of it.
― Henry Rollins Quotes
Chief Editor
Tal Gur is an author, founder, and impact-driven entrepreneur at heart. After trading his daily grind for a life of his own daring design, he spent a decade pursuing 100 major life goals around the globe. His journey and most recent book, The Art of Fully Living, has led him to found Elevate Society.
