Ed Rollins Quotes

While I disagree with our presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, I have nothing but respect and admiration for the men and women deployed in these places.

All of the jobs have gone away to satisfy the stockholders, so that's where the economy has gone. These major multinational corporations do not see their futures in America.

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.

There are religions and social and moral awareness in any society that gets passed immediately. Those human truths. All cultures address them.

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.

The bible saw that can get a lot of people killed, so let's try and steer people away from that. I am not an expert on the bible. I am just saying.

I continually remind myself to live by a code. It's very important to me. I've got a bad temper.

I am basically working 7 days a week. When I am not eating, sleeping, or working out, I am working on one of projects which I am just damned determined to finish.

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.

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

There's no retirement, there's just a few years of non-work by the fire with someone bringing you some tea and relative peace and playing with the grandchildren.

When you start thinking as far as what's a good photo, unfortunately everything starts looking like a good photo.

America is a rough room and you don't know what might come your way, so you have to be prepared for almost anything.

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.

I'm just shallow and self-interested, and don't get out much because I'm afraid of real commitments.

All I can do is just do stuff while I am alive and hopefully that track record will speak for itself.

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.

I think as resources become more dear, we really need to consider population.

That's where the economy is going. It went somewhere. Just not to America. And the money made? That went to the Cayman Islands and Switzerland. Not back here. Never to be taxed.

I've never killed anybody... but I've definitely thought about it.

While I have not ruled out the possibility of doing music, what I don't want to do is go onstage and perform old songs. I do, all the time, but I don't think it is artistically brave.

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.

I don't have any spiritual anything.You shoot a guy with a gun, he dies. You step on a bug, the bug dies. There is no heaven for me and no hell. And certainly not any Karma.

What I'm saying is America has a job deficit because hundreds of thousands of jobs went elsewhere. Not because [Barack] Obama raised your taxes. He, in fact, lowered them. They are lower.

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.

I guess I am famous in a way. I would rather consider it recognizable - I think that is more logical. I don't feel famous.

Some people tell me that they like what I do, which is great, of course. The perfect irony and truth is that I need them much more than they need me.

We Americans look funny when we're in France because we don't travel, we are fairly un-cultured whereas Europeans go to Africa all the time because it's right there.

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

There is no heaven for me and no hell. And certainly not any Karma.

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.

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

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.

Nowadays, the media have to be there to keep you from asking too many questions, from getting together with other people who might want to do the Jeffersonian thing and call out the government.

There's nothing new about the government protecting corporations and calling it the freeing of the world or bringing democracy to bereft nations.

But can a song stop a war? If Bob Marley and Bob Dylan couldn't do it, it can't be done.

I never think of what it's going to be like later. I only think in the present tense. The only time I think backwards is when I have to reissue something.

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

When you're very young, images that you upload into your very young mind tend to stay with you.

I think hip-hop has definitely brought the black experience to white kids more than the civil rights movement did and more than any teacher's well-intentioned lecture on Martin Luther King did.

When I was a kid looking at pictures of the Sphynx, and the Pyramids, and different tribes in Africa, all of that stuck with me, and I always wanted to see those things and meet those people.

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.

Well, there's Katrina, but you can go through lots of Kurdistan and it looks like Katrina was just there but there's people living in it.

There's nothing funny about, 'Yeah, I took a First Class plane ticket and I went to some designer beach and made out with a Laotian slave girl.' Who cares?

When you put yourself in environments that continually test you, that's where all the good stories come from. That's where the jokes come from is from the shitty parts.

I have built my life to pursue the new. I don't have family, don't know many people and I am usually ready to leave within an hour.

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

An appreciation of animals is good for a human, it can lead to a better understanding and respect for all living things.

If you really want a true confrontation, you treat your opponent with respect.

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.