Top 934 Quotes & Sayings by Henry Rollins - Page 3

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.

Maybe I'm just a psycho, and the stage is a better place to go than either the loony bin or somewhere else.

I have come to regard November as the older, harder man's October. I appreciate the early darkness and cooler temperatures. It puts my mind in a different place than October. It is a month for a quieter, slightly more subdued celebration of summer's death as winter tightens its grip.

The arts in America exist in spite of America, not because of America.

I remember when Martin Luther King was assassinated. I was up early watching television and watched the announcement. I didn't understand what the word 'assassinated' meant.

I think more tolerance, more people having more access to a chance to be literate, and a chance to stay healthy makes for a more peaceful planet.

There's a lot of mountain climbers trapped inside of bodies of people behind the counter at Kinko's.

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.

I have always maintained that Iggy Pop is the Heavyweight Champion of Rock & Roll.

The public library system of the United States is worth preserving.

I have always identified with Joan Didion's depiction of Los Angeles and Southern California, ever since reading 'Play It As It Lays,' 'Slouching Towards Bethlehem' and 'The White Album.'

My understanding of first-degree murder is that premeditation needs to be proven.

As a young person, I wanted everyone to agree with me.

I am an employment hyena. I am happy to make a meal of what the lions leave behind.

I've been in Iraq, and it never occurred to me to go, 'Hey, this war is bogus,' to some guy who's 24 hours a day trying not to get shot at or blown up.

If American forces leave Afghanistan, the Taliban is going to do what to America? Don't say you're worried about what they will do to the Afghan people. If that was America's concern, America's operational presence there would be much different.

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.

Lou Reed's music has been in the lives of millions of people all over the world for decades. He had a truly universal presence and was respected by musicians across all genres.

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.

As a teen, I heard the second Velvet Underground album, 'White Light/White Heat,' and it was too much for my limited scope of appreciation. It was intense, but I didn't get it.

I'm not a very good writer. I'm working at it.

After I wrapped 'Sons of Anarchy,' I traveled by myself for ten weeks. I started in Jordan and finished in Mali, in Timbuktu.

To me, the real 'state of the union' is found in how Americans react to current events.

Republicans just can't help themselves. They get in front of a live microphone and within a few sentences are rocketing down the swiftest and most direct route to the all-you-can-eat comedian-and-talk-show-host buffet.

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

I think it's fantastic when the young enrage their elders. I really do believe that if it's too loud, you are indeed too old, and that if it has been standing for too long, it needs a thorough inspection.

Amy Winehouse was not a person I ever met, and I can't say that I am overly conversant in all of her music. I do have her albums, and years ago, when I first heard her sing, I thought she was extraordinary. The tone of her voice, her phrasing, her raw appearance - these qualities were extremely captivating to me.

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 believe that contentment or any sustained period of joy that doesn't inspire thought that leads to action almost immediately is useless.

When people make my country look bad, I can't stand it.

What I don't want to do is go out there and not be able to mean it, you know?

And I laugh at myself when I screw things up, which happens all the time.

If an American company has a drop of patriotic blood coursing through its system, then surely it would set up in America and employ Americans, right?

As far as I have been able to understand, the Japanese seem to keep things close to the vest. Friendly but remote and polite to the point of being invisible. It is in the music, literature, film and art that the Japanese really seem to express themselves.

It's one thing to buy a copy of 'Atlas Shrugged.' You actually have to read it to get anything out of it.

That Newt Gingrich or any mainstream Republican has the nerve to look down from what they perceive as their moral mountaintop at anyone is laughable.

I can only write about personal stuff, about my point of view.

Young African-American males: Stop existing. It could get you killed.

My mother, a very eclectic listener, had the first Doors album and gave it to me when I expressed interest in the band. It was one of the first records I ever had. As the years passed, the babysitters who used to look after me would bring their Doors albums to the apartment, and that's how I got to hear their later work.

There's always going to be a need for activism; there's always going to be a need for you and me doing the right thing, being very Lincoln-sonian in looking out for each other.

What does New York sound like? For me, the Charlie Parker at the Royal Roost recordings on the Savoy label are the total embodiment of the New York music experience.

Someone like Ashlee Simpson, she lip-synchs on 'Saturday Night Live,' gets totally called out la Milli Vanilli, and no one really cares that much. It doesn't make me hate Ashlee; she's just taking instructions.

The ecstatic insanity of romantic pursuit can be so enhanced by music that entire romantic conquests, victories and ruinous, crushing defeats can be tied to songs to such a degree that it's almost unbearable to listen to them again, as they bring back the memories so vividly.

All my big heroes are literary, writers.

Most Americans are very cool people.

With age, life becomes complex and difficult, often fraught with risk on several levels, from the practical to the fiscal.

Music to me is mankind's greatest possible achievement because look at all the good it does.

For a long time, when I was very young, I went to go see arena rock bands. I was 16, and it was all I could get in to see, legally. And I saw Led Zeppelin and Ted Nugent and Van Halen and all that.

To combat the confusion and depression that assault me when I come off the road in the middle of a tour, I seek the most oblivionated music possible. When it's the 'way out there' that I seek, I go right to my stash of amazing music from Japan.

I mean Black Flag happened. I was lucky. I don't think I could have put together something with one percent of that oomph on my own.

I was at the first Minor Threat show, and you could tell, 'This band is going to be the king of the town.' It was obvious. They were so good.

I have been an XL fan of Devo since I was in high school in the 1970s. Their records only sound better with time.

In the summer of 1991, I was on the first Lollapalooza tour. Nightly, I would watch Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell go out in front of a sea of people and within minutes have all of them in the palm of his hand. I have never seen anything like it since.

Humans are pretty crafty but will fold quickly in severe cold.

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.

Kids need parents who love and support them unconditionally, full stop.

I have come to the conclusion that it's a waste of time to have too much pride in anything. Perhaps it's good to have a sense of duty, a jealous zeal to protect or improve, but pride ultimately is only that which stands vulnerable to offense and degradation.

I hate painting with a broad brush, but I think the birther thing, at its root, is racist. The guy was born in Hawaii. A black guy is president. It's cool. Get over it. Just deal with it. There's nothing you could show these birther people that would shut them up.

In many ways, America is on the receiving end of a pendulum that has been swung with great force, and for a long time, outward into the world. The impact is a wake-up call on every level.

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