Henry Rollins

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

“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.”

“Gay people don't have a personality problem. They have a problem with small-minded motherfuckers who can't conquer a 1-inch high curb.”

“Knowledge without mileage equals bullshit.”

“Girls aren't beautiful, they're pretty. Beautiful is too heavy a word to assign to a girl. Women are beautiful because their faces show that they know they have lost something and picked up something else.”

“Do it or don't. It's amazing how many things in life are that easy.”

“If there was a god, he wouldn't let a guy walk right up and shoot you in the face now would he? That's right, now you get the picture. Truth burns doesn't it?”

“Respect is not a one way street”

“You can get away with a lot of shit if it looks like it`s all you know how to do.”

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

“Sometimes I wish I could be like Teflon. I always admired that stuff. Water beads up on it and slides off, nothing sticks. You gotta have a little of that to be able to deal with what's out there. But... Teflon takes a shot and shows the damage. It cannot heal itself. That is our strength: we can heal. We can make ourselves stronger. You can be a bright light in a sea of shit, doesn't matter how big the light is as long as it shines. Get a hold of some of that and don't blow your brains out no matter how good an idea it sounds like at the time. Like when you wake up around three in the morning panicking from an attack from some unseen horror and you want to get out so bad.”

“I am the flying saucer man from another world trapped on yours until they come to rescue me. One day the saucer will land. Jimi Hendrix and John Coltrane will open the hatch and tell me to get in before someone tries to blow up the ship. I'll just ask what took them so long. Within seconds we'll be out of here.”

“Best not to mix the past with the present. The present paints the past with gold. The past paints the present with lead.”

“I feel like a visitor that got left behind by his ride.”

“I have heard people say that they felt closer to their parents after they have died. Maybe if I treat people as if they were dead, I could get along with them better”

“Nothing brings people together more than mutual hatred.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“I am talking about ultimate deceit. I am talking about unparalleled treachery. Bottomless lies. Depths that are seen that are previously unimaginable. Darkness and shattering despair that could break bones. Paranoia and horror that could stop the heart cold. All inflicted on one's self by one's self. The soul turns schizophrenic and goes hopelessly insane.”

“Too sick and freaked out not to want a bullet for every passer by, too sick and freaked out to breathe, too sick and freaked out to care, too sick and freaked out to think of anything but the annihilation of my mind and denial of my life. So sick and freaked out that I think everyone is my friend.”

“Keep me preoccupiedKeep me busy, busy, busySo I won't have to thinkI don't want to thinkBecause it only brings me painI just keep running away fromMy problemsKeep me busyGive me a million things to doSo I can keep running away from myself.”

“He looked at herSomethingTurned cancerousHe was in love.”

“I am well protectedToo locked upInside myselfTo get free”

“I will do my best to dodge tonight's depressionHide in sleepDamage myself in dreamsWake up older, slightly more used.”

“I have to keep movingI don't want to thinkI'm going to work all day todayI don't want to stopDon't want to let my brain catch up my thoughtsHow will I be able to tell them that I'm a shadowA grey patch of cold rotting life”

“Always knowing you're going to dieAnd until then knowing you've got to live.”

“Maybe some things are better left broken and scatteredVeiled in darkness, secret bitterness and self-doubtI should have known betterThan to start something that I couldn't finishThat I couldn't care aboutThat I couldn't remember starting in the first placeI don't want to know youYou went years without meYou might as well keep going.”

“I'm so burned out, the only person I can stand is myself.I'm the only one I would put through this.Wheels and wings,The ride is everything.I'm all I've got.I'm all I can take.Another day has destroyed a part of me.So far so good.”

“You don't make me feel like you used to.That's why I'm leavingThat's why people leave each otherThey come to their senses and get selfish again.”

“We came to the end, we found nothing. Nothing!!! And we cursed because we were hoping for so much less.”

“You have to get away from them. You have to get as far away as you can otherwise they'll kill you with their lives. They don't know what they do. They are careless with themselves and they take too much for granted. They make their shortcomings your problem. The only way to keep your head above it and heal your wounds is to crawl away.”

“Don't let despair mutate your fleshLook at my twisted stumps of thoughtSee the fingers, listen to the voiceI am slowly becoming the end of the line.”

“Life forgets me but will not let me forgetHolds me down and tells me that I'm free.”

“Don't push meI've got a corner at my backI've nowhere to go except over you.”

“He said that hate makes the world go roundPeople are afraid of what they really wantThey make enemies of all the things that they would like to beThey condition themselves to not embrace what they areLove is a clinging nauseaI tried to disagree with himIt was no useI never saw a more honest look in anyone's eyes.”

“One day, I stopped hating.I ceased all meaningless activity.I completed the circle. ISet my sights straight. Like anArrow I flew. I stopped acting.I got tired of playing with you.Random violence and destructionBecause my reason for living, my out,My excuse. What is your excuse?Destruction.Without hate, without fear,Without judgement. I am no betterThan you. No-one knows this betterThanI do. I just got tired of playingParlor Games.”

“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”

“What I felt for you was a combination of respect and affection. There was a closeness I felt through intimate interaction. The affection part is all over with. All that remains is the respect. If I put my arms around you and told you that I missed you, I would be lying. You're alright with me and I wish you well. But you're not me and that makes you one of them and you can only get so close.”

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

“My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.”

“I don't want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride. All you do is get to breathe and copulate and finally die. I don't want to go with the smooth skin and the calm brow. I hope I end up a blithering idiot cursing the sun - hallucinating, screaming, giving obscene and inane lectures on street corners and public parks. People will walk by and say, "Look at that drooling idiot. What a basket case." I will turn and say to them, "It is you who are the basket case. For every moment you hated your job, cursed your wife and sold yourself to a dream that you didn't even conceive. For the times your soul screamed yes and you said no. For all of that. For your self-torture, I see the glowing eyes of the sun! The air talks to me! I am at all times!" And maybe, the passers by will drop a coin into my cup.”

“The only difference between me and others is that they think they can change something with cute little poems, nice cards or embracing trees and being nice to little lapdogs.”

“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.”

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

“I watched her perform on the Grammys and she totally sucked. The song 'All I Want to Do is Have Some Fun' sucks and when she walked out of that place with all those Grammies I knew I was going to give mine away. I did. If they're giving them away for crap, I don't want one in my place. What an insult to real music and musicians everywhere.”

“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.”

“its no surprise to me that anyone hardly tells the truth about how they feel. The smart ones keep to themselves for good reason. Why would you want to tell anyone anything that's dear to you?Even when you like them and want nothing more than to be closer to them? It's so painful to be next to someone you feel so strongly about and know you can't say the things you want to.”

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

“Half of life is fucking up, the other half is dealing with it.”