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I must tell you that I was always afraid of the fury with which I loved you. It overwhelmed me. I thought it beyond comprehension, therefore my silence.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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In fact, every place I've been to in Africa has a nice part, but you see the downside. Calcutta , parts of Central and South America , I've seen a lot of dead bodies and a lot of sad poverty and just obliteration.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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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.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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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.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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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.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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Through getting sponsored and becoming a part of the Bones Brigade and Powell Peralta, doors were being opened. The entire culture was shifting from ramps to street, and I sort of became a poster child for that.
Mike Vallely Black Flag
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The times I have tried to get close to someone resulted in me feeling threatened and weak.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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I think there will always be great new music and bands. As long as there's people around, there's going to be great music. I think there's bands like Wolf Eyes, Q & Not U, the Evens and many others that are doing great stuff. The music that doesn't please you, you just don't listen. No one makes me listen to Nickelback, so long may they wave.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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Someone who would go across a desert that can kill you, to get to another country? You want to be an American *that* bad? 'Cause I've never had to lift my damn finger to be an American. I'm honored to share a country with you.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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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.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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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.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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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.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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Cynicism is only intellectual sloth.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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When I think of Mick Jagger still singing that he can't get any satisfaction in over forty years of being in the Rolling Stones, I have to conclude that he's either lying or not all that bright.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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Some soldier will say, 'You know, sir, you and I have some political disagreements, but I'm glad you came all the way out here.' And you know, you say, 'Well, maybe one day you'll see the light but I'm glad to be out here with you.'
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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Art can be a kind of therapeutic, or kind of a fantasy life, or wish fulfillment...o r creating this alternate universe. Art gives me the freedom to do that.
Raymond Pettibon Black Flag
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When you have to work with and exist amongst cynical, burned-out personnel on a set, it doesn't matter what you're shooting or how much you're being paid - it's not worth it.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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Go without a coat when it's cold; find out what cold is. Go hungry; keep your existence lean. Wear away the fat, get down to the lean tissue and see what it's all about. The only time you define your character is when you go without. In times of hardship, you find out what you're made of and what you're capable of. If you're never tested, you'll never define you character.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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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.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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Do you know why Albert Camus was so prolific? He wrote to keep from screaming.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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I like it better that people aren't throwing stuff at my face and trying to fight me on stage. Like in the '80s, it was just aggravating all the time... I have scars from cigars and cigarettes on me, Bic pens, burns from cigarette lighters, all that.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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For the last 30-plus years, I have been doing one long, uninterrupted improv.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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Hating someone is giving them too much, just leave them alone.
Henry Rollins Black Flag
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In my time, we had little league and junior league or whatever - before that, there's the sandlot. Kids played baseball wherever you can make a space. We played tackle-football on the street. Now we play basketball in the studio. We have a hoop. But we also have a pitching machine.
Raymond Pettibon Black Flag
