Henry Rollins Thinking Quotations

Pizza makes me think that anything is possible.

I'm not harmful, just introspective. You can probably think I'm weird, but it's not harmful weird.

I don't think you'll ever have a perfect world because we humans are prone to error, and so we're always in search of an upgrade.

Marriage equality is a term so ridiculous on its face that when you hear it mentioned, you would think you were in Riyadh. Years from now, perhaps we can lose the equality part, the same-sex part and call it what it is - marriage.

I think self-reliance and self-responsibility and self-accountability will help you as a parent, a teacher, as a citizen as a friend.

I don't hate the government. I don't think the Second Amendment is being infringed upon.

I think that humans have a huge capacity to carry pain and sadness. There are things that haunt us our entire lives; we are unable to let them go. The good times seem almost effervescent and dreamlike in comparison with the times that didn't go so well.

I think it's fantastic when the young enrage their elders. I really do believe that if it's too loud, you are indeed too old, and that if it has been standing for too long, it needs a thorough inspection.

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.

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.

Voting is completely important. People in America think democracy is a given. I think of it as an ecosystem, and what gets in the way of it is politicians and apathy.

I think more tolerance, more people having more access to a chance to be literate, and a chance to stay healthy makes for a more peaceful planet.

When I think of Mick Jagger still singing that he can't get any satisfaction in over forty years of being in the Rolling Stones, I have to conclude that he's either lying or not all that bright.

For me, Memphis has always been a city that holds a great deal of meaning and also leads me to a lot of thinking. Besides Sun Studio, which helped put rock n' roll on the map all over the world, the legendary Stax Studio also called Memphis home.

Please don't think that I am one of those squishy types who can't handle reality. I have plenty of real-world things to deal with all the time. I have deadlines, meetings, I answer the phone, I get turned down, I wait in lines and am forced to pass for normal all the time.

Think about it: No matter who you are, the past plays a large part in your life. I am all about living in the present as best as I can. Try as I might, there is only so much I am able to achieve on this front.

I think more airtime should be given to Donald Trump and Orly Taitz. They should run for office together. They should open for Charlie Sheen.

I think Perry Ferrell put independent music on a very good path with Lollapalooza.

When the movie comes out, what anybody thinks of it doesn't really matter to me. I don't go to the wrap party. I don't go to the premiere.

I think Naomi Klein was very astute with her book 'Shock Doctrine.' We make money on disaster.

When you start thinking as far as what's a good photo, unfortunately everything starts looking like a good photo.

I love capitalism. It rewards me for being brave - it awards me for being innovative and thinking out of the box.

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 think there will always be great new music and bands. As long as there's people around, there's going to be great music. I think there's bands like Wolf Eyes, Q & Not U, the Evens and many others that are doing great stuff. The music that doesn't please you, you just don't listen. No one makes me listen to Nickelback, so long may they wave.

I'm pessimistic. I don't think that justice always gets the right person.

We're just very belligerent, and I'm not trying to put Americans down, by and large I think we're nice people, but we operate with the information we're given and we are limited by the ignorance that is kind of injected into the media and into the TV shows.

It's hard for me to sympathize with a young person who chooses to go into the military because they know where they're going. I think we need to start depopulating the military.

I think Americans suffer for their lack of travel, awareness of the world. It has horribly warped our sense of place in the scheme of things.

I think Americans really need to start thinking globally. As resources become more dear, we will be pulled closer to the rest of the world anyway.

I think that America certainly has racism, I think that any industrialized country does. But when you see how many million fans Barack Obama has who are not black, it would lead one to the conclusion that millions of Americans are in fact not burdened by the albatross of racism.

I think it's very sad that the political landscape is so dotted with religious extremists who feel the need to infringe upon the lives of decent, free and harmless Americans who want nothing more than to be in love and to spend the rest of their lives together.

Enough Americans saw fit to give president Obama a second term. I don't think there will be many people keeping their Romney/Ryan bumper stickers on their cars.

Horror jolts me when I look at one of you and see a pair of beautiful eyes that make me think your mind might contain a world that could hold me as the bolts shake loose and fly from my frame.

I think as resources become more dear, we really need to consider population.

I don't mind bees and think we are all the better for having them around. I like the taste of honey.

I think it's important to have some documentation of the past.

I do think that Americans are poorly served by their media, at times extremely poorly served by their elected officials who are non responsive to majority feelings and cut off to a certain degree from the affairs of the world.

Have you ever heard the expression 'one hot mess?' I think the term was custom-made for the mayor of Toronto, Rob Ford.

Probably over half of America does not have a passport. If young people could spend two weeks of their life in India or pick an African country to go to for 2-3 weeks and really see how life can be. That might be a real good thing because I think they would see things even if the trip was a nightmare. I think they might understand more of the mechanics of the world.

If you think about it, every single species is endangered. Homo sapiens at the front of the line, mosquitoes and lawyers at the back.

I'm mellower now, I'm over 50. But I don't think I'm too mellow. I'm still angry at a lot of things.

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 think, to a great degree, we humans still divide ourselves into two species, even though we are monotypic. There are males and females. We see them as different and not equal.

I hate painting with a broad brush, but I think the birther thing, at its root, is racist. The guy was born in Hawaii. A black guy is president. It's cool. Get over it. Just deal with it. There's nothing you could show these birther people that would shut them up.

I wouldn't want to roll the dice on Kabul by myself, because I really think getting killed is definitely a possibility there. A very good possibility.

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.

I think politicians get hamstrung by the nature of politics when the private sector can really do great things.

I know I was a generic dysfunctional child, but I think a lot of people are.

I think marriage is a boring and fault-ridden contractual obligation.

I think of the thrill of an intelligent woman talking just to me.

As far as what people think of me, maybe my stuff should just be put online for free downloads when I'm gone.

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 preoccupied Keep me busy, busy, busy So I won't have to think I don't want to think Because it only brings me pain I just keep running away from My problems Keep me busy Give me a million things to do So I can keep running away from myself.

I have to keep moving I don't want to think I'm going to work all day today I don't want to stop Don't want to let my brain catch up my thoughts How will I be able to tell them that I'm a shadow A grey patch of cold rotting life

I mean Black Flag happened. I was lucky. I don't think I could have put together something with one percent of that oomph on my own.

Sometimes it seems the harder you try to hold onto something or someone the more it wants to get away. You feel like some kind of criminal for having felt, for having wanted. For having wanted to be wanted. It confuses you because you think that your feelings were wrong and it makes you feel so small because it’s so hard to keep it inside when you let it out and it doesn’t come back. You’re left so alone that you can’t explain.

It is impossible, after a certain point, to go back to a previous way of life, a previous way of thinking.

After having read a lot of fiction, literature, whatever you want to call it, from Wolfe to Houellebecq, I think you have to have an understanding and insight of the human condition that is informed and motivated by a desire to immerse yourself in the human world and bring these stories to bear.

Listen to the stage manager and get on stage when they tell you to. No one has time for the rock star bullshit. None of the techs backstage care if you're David Bowie or the milkman. When you act like a jerk, they are completely unimpressed with the infantile display that you might think comes with your dubious status. They were there hours before you building the stage, and they will be there hours after you leave tearing it down. They should get your salary, and you should get theirs.

I write what I can. I think being able to write like Michael Connelly and have a character that goes from novel to novel, or to dramatize history like Vidal or Ellroy, or have an explosively inventive mind like Bulgakov, would be an incredible thing. I don't have that. I only have what I have.

I think to write fiction you have to have a powerful need/desire to connect. I can't. Wanting to and not being able to has lead to a lot of misery in my life.

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.

Don’t think about it. Do it. Don’t talk about it. Do it.

I think the most "passionate" I get about actual humans are the ones I want to kill.

All good writers inspire me as I have never thought I was any good. As far as a writer who made me think I could do it, it was Henry Miller. Not because I thought he was so simple that I reckoned I could pull it off as well, but it was his freedom and guts that really moved me to want to write all the time.

She touches me The jungle lights up with incinerating fire Looks like a flaming serpent I look into her eyes I see a movie flickering Car crashes People kicking corpses Men ripping their tracheas out and shaking them at the sky I think to myself: I don’t want to survive this one I want to burn up in the wreckage Cooking flesh in the jungle

I think that Goldman Sachs and the Pentagon determine more of America's outcome then any president or any congress, that sounds a bit cynical, but I think I am right.

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 rich survive and everyone else gets ready to work 2 1/2 to 3 1/2 jobs and what do you get? Blade Runner. Welcome to your science fiction. Your 21st century. I think that's where it goes. The rich get richer and everyone else... the middle class kind of starts dropping lower and lower.

Somewhere someone is thinking of you. Someone is calling you an angel. This person is using celestial colors to paint your image. Someone is making you into a vision so beautiful that it can only live in the mind.

I have healthy disagreements with political parties I'm not aligned with, but I don't think it should be to the point where we're cursing and trying to strangle each other.

I never think of what it's going to be like later. I only think in the present tense. The only time I think backwards is when I have to reissue something.

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.

If I think of the audience too much, then I'm going to start catering to them...and it turns into entertainment. And I've got time for entertainment; I'm just not at all that interested in doing it myself. I'd rather go for some pretty raw expression.

I get letters from young people telling me that they're broke and download my albums for free. They ask me what I think about that. I now have a standard line. I tell them, 'I would rather be heard than paid.'

I was never told to "Get up, get out there, get a job." It was never a thing either parent ever said I had to do. It was what I wanted to do. I think I was very interested in being away from them as much as possible. Employment was great for that.

I think the U.K. is an amazing place and has been extremely good to me. Some of my favorite and most-listened-to bands are from England. I have met many good people there and have been in front of some of the most loyal audiences I have ever encountered.

I guess I am famous in a way. I would rather consider it recognizable - I think that is more logical. I don't feel famous.

I think in rural settings, people have a different appreciation for animals than might the city dweller. In parts of India where poisonous snake bite is common, people have a much different value system. I live in a city. I'm not thinking about wolves, lions, etc.

I think there is something very interesting about people who live day to day in an environment where they could get taken out by a wild animal. There has to be some kind respect that is derived from that relationship.

I would hate to think that some people have found themselves in a musical cul-de-sac and have ceased to explore new music, or at least music that is new to them, because they are so glued to the past.

Maybe I'm ego-tripping, but I don't find myself a particularly horrible person, so I don't think I need to hold back anything I think or feel.

I think young people should travel and travel often to other countries like I do.

I just write what I think is good and keep it at a thousand words.

I think I am the most impressed with writing styles that defy category, like Kharms or Selby, Breton or Jarry, where you become as interested in the writer as much as the writing itself. It's all these things that make reading so appealing to me.

I remain hopeful that science, innovation and kindness will come to the fore as things become more and more tense in parts of the world. I think what you are seeing in the world right now is kind of a leveling or an attempt to level the playing field.

I don't really think about the audience much. I think of myself. Let me dig myself out of that one.

While I have not ruled out the possibility of doing music, what I don't want to do is go onstage and perform old songs. I do, all the time, but I don't think it is artistically brave.

I think we are in fact, losing free speech. We don't seem to care though. Many of us don't seem to notice. We will have to do a lot of work to bring back the American way to America.

I'm not a conservative or a republican but I know that there's conservative republicans who I probably vigorously disagree with but I also am smart enough, or something enough, to understand that they really think that they're right, and they're looking at me like I'm crazy.

I'm always looking, people are always presenting and I have found that every year of my life there's been great bands. All over the world, all the time. So when someone goes, "Music sucks now!" I'll go, "I don't think so. Not over at my house."