Henry Rollins Quotes

I believe that one defines oneself by reinvention. To not be like your parents. To not be like your friends. To be yourself. To cut yourself out of stone.

Being an artist is dragging your innermost feelings out, giving a piece of yourself, no matter in which art form, in which medium.

Don't do anything by half. If you love someone, love them with all your soul. When you go to work, work your ass off. When you hate someone, hate them until it hurts.

Giving a good performance, giving it all is what it's all about. I love to perform.

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

I am an optimist because I want to change things for the better and I know that blood has to be spilled and disharmony and cruelty are necessary to do that.

As long as I tell the truth I feel that nobody can touch me.

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.

I can only write about personal stuff, about my point of view.

I can't remember that I ever had just a minute of stage fright.

I don't believe in fate or destiny. I believe in various degrees of hatred, paranoia, and abandonment. However much of that gets heaped upon you doesn't matter - it's only a matter of how much you can take and what it does to you.

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.

I don't mind The Boss. I think he's an honest guy. I have some of his records, not all of them. I've met a couple of the E-Street guys, and they seem really cool.

I forged myself out of a vacuum. I crawl along the highway on hacked off stumps year after year. Some wonder how and why. I never do.

I just get things done instead of talking about getting them done. I don't go out and party. I don't smoke, drink or do drugs and I'm not married, that leaves a lot of time for my work.

I love to go on stage and sing.

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.

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.

I want to change things for the better, just like everybody else.

I'm 36 and if I met a woman of my own age and married her, I'd also be marrying her former life, her past. It might be OK for some people - I don't want to judge it or anything - but it's not for me. It would destroy my creativity.

I'm most in my element on tour, with a gig that day, like today. I'm on the road where I am supposed to be. I will be where I'm supposed to be at nighttime, on stage, in front of people, doing my thing.

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.

In the summer of '84, you just couldn't escape the Born in the USA record.

It is just that I don't want a wife and I don't want kids.

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