Henry Rollins Quotes

In my world there would be as many public libraries as there are Starbucks.

I'll be here tomorrowIf I can make it through today.

It's funny how people think that they have "a right to life". Now isn't that the biggest load you ever heard? You don't have a right to shit your pants on Sunday. Let's take it back to the jungle. Where the fuck are your rights there? No layers in the jungle. Civilization has allowed the weak to survive. You can sit back and be an overweight, apathetic piece of shit, smoke your dope and still survive because you have a right to life.

Henry Rollins

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

Henry Rollins

I was at this guy's house. I met this girl who was hanging out there. She was real pretty, she had brown eyes and dark hair. She was soft-spoken and real nice. I know that everyone has their own life and they can do what they want and you shouldn't think anything of it or anything. But man, I couldn't help but flinch a little when I saw all those needle marks in her arm, they looked so sore. Hateful little holes. I wanted to say something, but I didn't.

Henry Rollins

You are beautiful like demolition. Just the thought of you draws my knuckles white. I don’t need a god. I have you and your beautiful mouth, your hands holding onto me, the nails leaving unfelt wounds, your hot breath on my neck. The taste of your saliva. The darkness is ours. The nights belong to us. Everything we do is secret. Nothing we do will ever be understood; we will be feared and kept well away from. ..It’s you and me in this room, on this floor. Beyond life, beyond morality. We are gleaming animals painted in moonlit sweat glow. Our eyes turn to jewels and everything we do is an example of spontaneous perfection. I have been waiting all my life to be with you. My heart slams against my ribs when I think of the slaughtered nights I spent all over the world waiting to feel your touch. The time I annihilated while I waited like a man doing a life sentence. Now you’re here and everything we touch explodes, bursts into bloom or burns to ash. History atomizes and negates itself with our every shared breath. I need you like life needs life. I want you bad like a natural disaster. You are all I see. You are the only one I want to know.

Henry Rollins

For some there is no musicNo lightsNo fireNo untamed madness that breathes lifeThere is workAnguishFrustrationRageDespairA dullness that rings like wooden thunder

Henry Rollins

You always know the mark of a coward. A coward hides behind freedom. A brave person stands in front of freedom and defends it for others.

Henry Rollins

I think to myself: I don't want to survive this oneI want to burn up in the wreckage

Henry Rollins

She lit my soul and inhaled deeplyFlicking my ashes occasionally.

Henry Rollins

I see walking bombs on the streetHearts not beating, but ticking

Henry Rollins

They say true love only comes around once and you have to hold out and be strong until then. I have been waiting. I have been searching. I am a man under the moon, walking the streets of earth until dawn. There's got to be someone for me. It's not too much to ask. Just someone to be with. Someone to love. Someone to give everything to. Someone.

Henry Rollins

I don't have talent, I have tenacity.

Henry Rollins

My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.

Henry Rollins

The material you work with is that which you will come to resemble. That which you work against will always work against you, including yourself.

Henry Rollins

I get tired of talking when I want to be silent.

Henry Rollins

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

They left like you knew they would. They went away and you fell like a stone. All the way to the bottom of your room. I see you, yes I see you. Sitting in your chair, hating every minute of it. Falling like a stone without even moving. It hurt you to know that you were right about all the shit you wanted to be wrong about. They always leave you. You put yourself in the right place to get left.

Henry Rollins

At some point they show their true colorsAfter the break upAfter the trial After the contract is signed and brokenTheir true colors stinkThese daysI find it hard to get along with themI want to push them until the colors come out And sometimes I hate them so much, I push and seeI do the same to the ones I likeThe ones I don’t care about I smile at real nice

Henry Rollins

Do you ever get the feeling that when you show someone your affection for them, you are assaulting them? Like you should probably leave them alone? Your affection, no matter how sincere, does not necessarily mean a damn thing to the person you are giving it to. Love can corner you. When you intrude on someone with your affection, you might find yourself trying to knock a strong door down with your shoulder. Either you break the door or you break yourself. Something almost always gets broken. In my mind it runs like this: I’m going to like you, whether you like it or not. I’ll wear you down until you relent and swallow this big lie I have for you. Don’t move. Don’t live. I love you.

Henry Rollins

Yes, I guess you could say I am a loner, but i feel more lonely in a crowded room with boring people then i feel on my owm.

Henry Rollins

Everything you do makes my body scream with loneliness. When I see you, the room swallows me. I find myself at the bottom of the pool.

Henry Rollins

My main goal is to stay alive. To keep fooling myself into hanging around. To keep getting up every day. Right now I live without inspiration. I go day to day and do the work because it's all I know. I know that if I keep moving I stand a chance. I must keep myself going until I find a reason to live. I need one so bad. On the other hand maybe I don't. Maybe it's all bullshit. Nothing I knew from my old life can help me here. Most of the things that I believed turned out to be useless. Appendages from someone else's life.Everything I have I would give to not know what I know. To not feel emptiness as my constant companion. To not look into this room and be reminded why I'm in it. I'm not getting enough air. The room feels so small all of a sudden. It's pathetic to be this lonely and know it. To keep breathing. To be silent and alone. And to know.

Henry Rollins

Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.

Henry Rollins

Yeah, that’s my experience. Humbling to the point where you have major regrets about some of the stupid things you said, some of the things you thought were right. You keep going to these countries, and it’s like, you forgot the lesson from the last time. Because the first person you encounter kind of bitch-slaps you upside the head in the most wonderful, innocent way and you realize, God, I’m still an asshole. And this guy, by doing nothing except being broke and so incredibly polite—it takes you aback, you realize, I’m still not there yet. I still have like eight miles to go before I can even get into the parking lot of humility. I have to keep going back. It’s like going back to a chiropractor to get a readjustment. That’s me in Africa, that’s me in Southeast Asia. You come back humbled and you bring that into your life. It’s made me much more tolerant of other peoples—and I’m not saying I used to be a misogynist, or I used to be a racist, that was never my problem. But I can be extremely headstrong, impatient, rude. Like, “Hurry up, man. What’s your problem? Get out of my way.” That sentiment comes easy to me. Going to these countries, you realize none of that is necessary, none of it’s cool, it’s nothing Abraham Lincoln would do, and so why are you doing it? Those are the lessons I’ve learned.

Henry Rollins

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

Henry Rollins

I think about the meaning of pain. Pain is personal. It really belongs to the one feeling it. Probably the only thing that is your own. I like mine.

Henry Rollins

A rose trapped inside a fist.

Henry Rollins

She liked me because she said that we both hated everything and knew that friendship was an act of desperation. She said that for a man I was alright. She said that people were half-way and if it was up to her a lot of people would get killed and a lot of men would be walking around without their balls. She said that they should go on sale for women to hang off their rearview mirrors.

Henry Rollins

There is nothing like being told to go fuck yourself by the same person who was, only days before, praying on your behalf.

Henry Rollins

I used to love youI still doSo SelfishI love the old youThe you that didnt shoot drugs...The you that didnt get beat on by menYou laugh in my face and call me a foolBut its trueI still love youSometimes,I can see the old youWhen your eyes flashWhen you almost look alive

Henry Rollins

Hope is the last thing a person does before they are defeated.

Henry Rollins

When life hands you a lemon, say, 'Oh yeah, I like lemons! What else ya got?

Henry Rollins

I definitely learned a lesson this time. I know that I can be broken. I am not as tough as I thought. I see it now. At this point, it's the only thing good that came out of all of this. I know myself better now and know what I have to do.

Henry Rollins

I am ready for whatever's coming. I expect nothing but to be let down or turned away. I am alone. Goddamn. The shit hurts sometimes, but I realize what I am, what I have become.

Henry Rollins

Life will not break your heart. It'll crush it.

Henry Rollins

Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.

Henry Rollins

Love heals scars love left

Henry Rollins

It hurts to let go. Sometimes it seems the harder you try to hold on to something or someone the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of criminal for having felt, for having wanted. For having wanted to be wanted. It confuses you, because you think that your feelings were wrong and it makes you feel so small because it's so hard to keep it inside when you let it out and it doesn't coma back. You're left so alone that you can't explain. Damn, there's nothing like that, is there? I've been there and you have too. You're nodding your head.

Henry Rollins

You are beautiful like demolition. Just the thought of you draws my knuckles white. I don’t need a god. I have you and your beautiful mouth, your hands holding onto me, the nails leaving unfelt wounds, your hot breath on my neck. The taste of your saliva. The darkness is ours. The nights belong to us. Everything we do is secret. Nothing we do will ever be understood; we will be feared and kept well away from. It will be the stuff of legend, endless discussion and limitless inspiration for the brave of heart. It’s you and me in this room, on this floor. Beyond life, beyond morality. We are gleaming animals painted in moonlit sweat glow. Our eyes turn to jewels and everything we do is an example of spontaneous perfection. I have been waiting all my life to be with you. My heart slams against my ribs when I think of the slaughtered nights I spent all over the world waiting to feel your touch. The time I annihilated while I waited like a man doing a life sentence. Now you’re here and everything we touch explodes, bursts into bloom or burns to ash. History atomizes and negates itself with our every shared breath. I need you like life needs life. I want you bad like a natural disaster. You are all I see. You are the only one I want to know.

Henry Rollins