Quotes from Henry Rollins

In the summer of 1991, I was on the first Lollapalooza tour. Nightly, I would watch Jane's Addiction singer Perry Farrell go out in front of a sea of people and within minutes have all of them in the palm of his hand. I have never seen anything like it since.

This is my own little rock theory: In my mind, Nirvana slayed the hair bands. They shot the top off the poodles.

In Israel, there's a lot to learn from anyone, because to live there you've got to deal with the truth. Things happen real fast. Your day goes from cool to catastrophic in one second. Israelis know that the cafe you're in could blow up, or the shopping mall, and they rock that.

Pizza makes me think that anything is possible.

While I have no empirical evidence to back this up, I bet that the number of homosexual people per thousand has not fluctuated all that much over the centuries. I do not believe the dented wisdom my father used to extol, that homosexuality was a sure sign of a civilization in decline.

No such thing as spare time, no such thing as free time, no such thing as down time. All you got is life time. Go.

I am a pretty crazy person, so it's best for me to be on my own most of the time.

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.

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 wonder what it's like to be from a state that is spread across a few islands way out in the Pacific Ocean, only added to the United States in 1959. Not only that but to be the birthplace of America's first black president? Pretty cool, I bet.

I wonder if it is Australia's great distance from more populated land masses that allows its inhabitants to be left to their own devices, to be incredibly creative and, at times, to be wonderfully weird.

Sometimes when you meet a musician you are a fan of, and he or she isn't the friendliest person, you walk away from the experience wondering if you will ever be able to listen to their music again.

It's why real men just go out in the woods and howl. I must do it and get paid.

I don't know if you have ever seen the Woody Allen film 'Annie Hall,' but it is, in a way, to Los Angeles and 'Hollywood' what 'This Is Spinal Tap' is to many musicians.

It is instilled in thousands of American males from an early age that one of their requirements is to be able to both dish out and take a lot of pain. They are taught the rules of this road in gyms, rings, backyards and fields all over America.

I have lived in public as a somewhat recognizable person since I was a teenager. Emails I answer end up posted on sites; pictures of me and someone I just met, taken by a cellphone, literally number in the thousands and are easily accessed.

America sold VX nerve gas and anthrax to Iraq for years, even after the Halabja gas attack, which killed thousands of Kurds.

I was at the first Minor Threat show, and you could tell, 'This band is going to be the king of the town.' It was obvious. They were so good.

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.

George Zimmerman is a foot soldier in a rapidly privatizing country. He is a new centurion of 21st-century America. Law enforcement is tied down by the strictures of, well, the law. There is only 'so much they can do' to take care of the 'problem.'

There's tons of junk food for your mind on the Internet. You can sit there for three or 10 or 20 hours a day getting in online arguments with other people who also choose to waste their time.

Why do you think the old stories tell of men who set out on great journeys to impress the gods? Because trying to impress people just isn't worth the time and effort.

And I laugh at myself when I screw things up, which happens all the time.

It's hard to get along with people. As much as you try to like them and accept them as individuals, it becomes difficult because they keep getting out of line and wasting your time.