Quotes By Henry Rollins

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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

I'm mellower now, I'm over 50. But I don't think I'm too mellow. I'm still angry at a lot of things.

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

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

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'd like to talk to Arnold Schwarzenegger, 'cause I live in California and I just want to see that canned, chemical filled body in my office.

I have always thought that change you can see and feel is best.

I'm most comfortable on stage.

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.

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

Most Americans are very cool people.

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

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

I've always seen it as the role of an artist to drag his inside out, give the audience all you've got. Writers, actors, singers, all good artists do the same. It isn't supposed to be easy.

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

I know I was a generic dysfunctional child, but I think a lot of people are.

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

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.

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

Most of the people who call me a sellout were 7 when I was down face-first in the punk trenches.

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

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

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

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