Henry Rollins Quotes

My first visit to West Berlin was in February 1983. The drive through East Berlin, the fact that West Berlin was surrounded by a wall that was more than 100 miles long - the absurdity and intensity of it really knocked me out.

Henry Rollins Black Flag

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Quotes to Explore

• 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.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Thinking
  • Care
  • Building

• In winter, I plot and plan. In spring, I move.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Moving
  • Spring
  • Winter

• 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.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Thinking
  • Mind
  • Vision

• There's no such thing as an ex-junkie.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Junkie
  • Exes

• To justify being listened to, I try to be as well informed as I can. Hence, the travel. Reading is good too. Reading gets you part way there, and I do read pretty voraciously for a guy who's trying to write so much.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Writing
  • Trying
  • Guy

• In my many trips to South Africa, I have met and spoken to a lot of people there, and they all seem to find apartheid as repellent as you would.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • People
  • Apartheid

• Respect is not a one way street

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Way
  • Streets

• 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.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Soul
  • Feelings
  • Laughing

• That's the only interaction I have with people, those talking shows. Most of the people in my phone book are artists, management, producers, engineers. I don't ever call people with, "Hi! How are you?" I say, "How are you? Do you have that 16/30 ready? When do you want me to come into the studio?" That's what I do.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • People
  • Book
  • Artist

• I love being a storyteller. I love telling stories.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Stories
  • Love Is
  • Storyteller

• I'd defend myself. But I don't go around shoving people around; that's not me at all - that's for a cop. I'm not into that type of behavior at all.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • People
  • Behavior
  • Type

• Nothing brings people together more, than mutual hatred.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • People
  • Together
  • Anger

• In the worst of times the best among us never lose their moral compass, and that is how they emerge relatively unscathed.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Moral
  • Leadership
  • Compass

• Without an education, you won't have a future.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Future
  • Education

• 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.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Reality
  • Problem
  • Water

• 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.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Heart
  • Memories
  • Gold

• Having an identity is one thing. Being born into an identity is quite a different matter.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Different
  • Matter
  • Identity

• I'll never forget how the depression and loneliness felt good and bad at the same time. Still does.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Forget
  • Depression
  • Stills

• I cling to my memories of glorious desperation.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Memories
  • Glorious
  • Desperation

• I slept in Uday Hussein's bed - that was just so strange. Went to Saddam's palace, was in a mortar attack - crazy stuff. And like three days later you're back in traffic on Sunset Boulevard. It's all kind of behind you, which is kind of perfect for a guy like me because I can take that and turn it into quite the tale.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Guy
  • Perfect
  • Kind

• I'm a big fan of the American Tapes label. But that's very hard to keep a grip on that because you blink your eyes and they've released three records, all of which are limited edition, all sold at one show. So you have to follow in drips and drops on eBay, which I do.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Eye
  • Fans
  • Bigs

• With a book, there's no volume to turn up. You're very naked with a book.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Book
  • Turns
  • Naked

• 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.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • People
  • Different
  • Concern

• I'm not in a position where I get to pick and choose roles. I usually go on auditions in long lines and embarrass myself in front of casting directors, and with a lump in my throat and my ears burning, I walk past reception and smirking actors as I go to the parking garage and go back on the highway.

  

  Henry Rollins Black Flag
  • Long
  • Past
  • Actors