Henry Rollins Quotes
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Best not to mix the past with the present. The present paints the past with gold. The past paints the present with lead.
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Whenever I write lyrics, in the back of my mind I always see a guy driving to work, driving to a really bad job, one of those horrible institutions, or one of those low squat buildings in Los Angeles. I write with that person in my mind.
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I am primarily a loner. I don't go to clubs. I don't hang out with people. I don't know many people. It's just the way it ended up. It's not a sob story; it's fine for me.
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If you paid Americans a living wage, they would be able to pay for products made by Americans in America.
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I'm disappointed by bands left and right, every day.
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Imagine a 15-year-old kid saying, 'I have two moms - it's cool.' I don't fear that at all.
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I'm most comfortable on stage.
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The scarcity of the music not only makes the music itself enjoyable but it also gives the collector a strange sense of superiority.
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It is our destiny to be born beautiful into an ugly age.
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The times I have tried to get close to someone resulted in me feeling threatened and weak.
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I am too far gone to be rehabilitated.
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This is my own little rock theory: In my mind, Nirvana slayed the hair bands. They shot the top off the poodles.
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I feel close to people like Jimi Hendrix because I connect with his music. Not the man but what he did.
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What I felt for you was a combination of respect and affection. There was a closeness I felt through intimate interaction. The affection part is all over with. All that remains is the respect. If I put my arms around you and told you that I missed you, I would be lying. You're alright with me and I wish you well. But you're not me and that makes you one of them and you can only get so close.
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If it were a choice between me getting killed or one of my friend's kids, I would happily take the shot.
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The visceral nature of hard rock music, the fact that you can have this sledge hammering sound - and that you can hook a lyric up and a feeling up to something and make the lyric jump into this machine that crushes. That has always been really attractive to me, that kind of power.
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The prison-industrial complex and the military-industrial complex are here with us and are multi-billion dollar enterprises. We can make more money off the kid in Compton if he's a criminal instead of a scholar. It's business.
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Trying to write music, be in a band and keep it all happening is one of the hardest, morale-destroying, heartbreaking things you will ever try to do - and that's when it's going well.
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For the last 30-plus years, I have been doing one long, uninterrupted improv.
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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.
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I think that humans have a huge capacity to carry pain and sadness. There are things that haunt us our entire lives; we are unable to let them go. The good times seem almost effervescent and dreamlike in comparison with the times that didn't go so well.
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One day, I stopped hating. I ceased all meaningless activity. I completed the circle. I Set my sights straight. Like an Arrow I flew. I stopped acting. I got tired of playing with you. Random violence and destruction Because my reason for living, my out, My excuse. What is your excuse? Destruction. Without hate, without fear, Without judgement. I am no better Than you. No-one knows this better Than I do. I just got tired of playing Parlor Games.
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I don't really think about the audience much. I think of myself. Let me dig myself out of that one.
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I spend several days at a time without enough sleep. At first, normal activities become annoying. When you are too tired to eat, you really need some sleep. A few days later, things become strange. Loud noises become louder and more startling, familiar sounds become unfamiliar, and life reinvents itself as a surrealist dream.