Henry Rollins Quotes

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.

I don't have many friends so the phone doesn't ring and no one's asking me to go out and go dancing with them.

I'm always looking upwards and looking forwards and so when someone says, "Hey, would you consider a TV show?" I say, "Hell yeah, I'll consider that. I'll check that out."

Hopefully, one enhances [when growing older] his sense of humor. As he approaches 50, he'll need all the humor he can get.

It's always been impressive to me when someone can really do what they want onstage. The audience has confidence in the performer and the performer has confidence in the crowd.

What makes me uncomfortable about [Barack] Obama is what makes me uncomfortable about any young politician who has not yet been bloodied inside the Beltway.

If it were a choice between me getting killed or one of my friend's kids, I would happily take the shot.

All of the things that the bible warns you of being: jealous, covetous, murderous, selfish, etc., that's kind of how humans are.

I just write what I think is good and keep it at a thousand words.

I lay off a lot modern fiction and only rely on living writers for non-fiction work.

When I write lyrics, it's only when I'm angry or hurt or sad. So lyrically it's never really easy going. And the music is always really intense.

I like how I write better than how I speak.

It's hard to keep your backbone straight in America. It's easy to turn into that which you hate, and to get smashed.

For me, speaking to anyone - on a stage, in an elevator - I am looking for impact and connection. The same goes for writing.

I don't need music for the good times. I don't have that kind of need. Music doesn't serve me like that.

For myself, I can't understand a life without a job. I don't know what I would do without employment. Retirement is out of the question for me.

I live my life by the numbers. Not only am I an American, I am an Americanist.

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.

I live my life through the prism of capitalism and physiological limits and eventualities.

We occupy the planet with a vengeance. We seek to dominate it.

For me, music was an age/time/place thing. One day I woke up and realized I was done. That was many years ago.

My whole access into culture was violent. Violence is something I understand. Don't like it, don't condone it, but I sure understand where it comes from.

I enjoy helping. I like doing benefits and things like that, but don't feel the need to be thanked or even meet the people I am doing the benefit for.