Quotes by Henry Rollins, American Musician

  • That Newt Gingrich or any mainstream Republican has the nerve to look down from what they perceive as their moral mountaintop at anyone is laughable.
  • 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.
  • The Wacken festival started more than 20 years ago with just a few hundred people in attendance. Tickets now sell out before the lineup is announced.
  • The Internet, the camera cellphone and the like have not only sped up the world’s information uptake, but they have cheapened that which they capture.
  • Jazz music is as American as it gets, and so is the U.S. Postal Service. A Miles Davis stamp is a perfect marriage of two great American institutions.
  • I’ve been in Iraq, and it never occurred to me to go, ‘Hey, this war is bogus,’ to some guy who’s 24 hours a day trying not to get shot at or blown up.
  • I am a veteran of the War on Christmas. I am just emerging from a battlefield strewn with dead trees and torn shreds of brightly colored wrapping paper.
  • As the middle class is predated upon with an ever greater malicious intensity, their children stand to lose more and harder than their parents ever did.
  • The Civil Rights Act of 1964 was vigorously and vociferously opposed by the Southern states. President Lyndon B. Johnson signed it into law nonetheless.
  • I don’t have a crystal ball, but I’m willing to bet one of my arms right now that as long as there’s electricity, Ramones music is going to be relevant.
  • I don’t believe it mattered to Timothy McVeigh who was president or who his congressional representative was when he blew up the Murrah Building in 1995.
  • 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 think it is incumbent on anyone who can to lift human dignity to the highest possible levels, maintaining one’s own and helping to raise that of others.
  • As so much music is listened to via MP3 download, many will never experience the joy of analog playback, and for them, I feel sorry. They are missing out.
  • I have had a number of less-than-enviable moments in my life when dealing with other people. I won’t attempt to blunt that by saying I am not the only one.
  • The number of people who are actual supporters of Mr. Romney could very well be less than the Donner Party, whose members they sadly resemble in many ways.
  • There’s something about being under-rested and knowing that the situation is going to remain that way for quite some time that makes things more meaningful.
  • 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.
  • For many, an album is no longer a considerable feat of an artist but just sounds to be half-listened to while one is halfheartedly engaged in something else.
  • You could split hairs and bring up words like ‘doo-wop’ and terms like ‘soul’ or ‘R&B’, but I think pop music is what you want it to be – that’s why it’s pop.