Quotes from Henry Rollins

Help me to withstand your beauty as it stands out of reach. Give me the capacity to forget ever having felt your touch.

The history of apartheid-era South Africa is incredibly sad and at times infuriatingly incomprehensible.

The most interesting place by far was Afghanistan. Just because it is a place that I cannot see myself living. The hardness of the people and the history of the country is just so completely intense.

I come from a town of great musicians: Washington, D.C. It's no joke, that history.

Disappointment always arrives before hope and the darkness of night comes before the dawn. Don't lose hope now because things will brighter with the new day.

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

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

I warn people, your 40s will require massive amounts of humor and humility.

Don't go to summer camp. Bury your parents in the backyard and have the place to yourself.

Break from self rejection, try some introspection.

The first several years of my life were used to upload incredible amounts of fear, and I just became afraid of everything. I was afraid of my parents, afraid of my classmates, afraid of the streets of Washington, D.C. I would flinch at every gesture.

When you're holding people's attention, I feel you must give them high-quality ingredients. They deserve nothing but your best. And if they need information, get it, cross-check it, and try to be right. Do not waste their time; do not enjoy the ego trip of being onstage.

The perpetrators of the actual bad stuff that does real and lasting harm to people, like leakage of industrial chemicals into water systems, seem to get not so much as a second glance; the bloviation from media pundits and think tanks creates false problems that waste time and energy debunking.

I remember when Martin Luther King was assassinated. I was up early watching television and watched the announcement. I didn't understand what the word 'assassinated' meant.

If you want to go the scorched-earth, Obamacare-is-like-slavery route and choose to stay uninsured, you will have the Palinesque guts, the Cruzian fortitude to wave off the ambulance that will appear to scoop you up should something bad happen to you, right?

Adolescence is a plague on the senses.

Musicians should not play music. Music should play musicians.

To our enemies all over the world who plan America's demise, please take my advice. Give up now. No matter what, you will lose. You will lose it all.

More and more, journalism seems to have hopped out of Truth's pocket and crept into another.

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

Weakness is what brings ignorance, cheapness, racism, homophobia, desperation, cruelty, brutality, all these things that will keep a society chained to the ground, one foot nailed to the floor.

I consider any gun that can chamber a round and send a projectile down its barrel at a high rate of speed into my body - causing me injury or death - to be an assault weapon.

My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.

To my ears, jazz sounds better in warm weather and after the sun has gone down. While I will listen to some of my favorite jazz records in cooler weather, it's the warmer nights that really make them come alive. Something about those sounds and the heat of the night really makes it happen for me.