“Hope is the last thing a person does before they are defeated.”― Henry Rollins
“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.”― Henry Rollins
“I beg young people to travel. If you don’t have a passport, get one. Take a summer, get a backpack and go to Delhi, go to Saigon, go to Bangkok, go to Kenya. Have your mind blown. Eat interesting food. Dig some interesting people. Have an adventure. Be careful. Come back and you’re going to see your country differently, you’re going to see your president differently, no matter who it is. Music, culture, food, water. Your showers will become shorter. You’re going to get a sense of what globalization looks like. It’s not what Tom Friedman writes about; I’m sorry. You’re going to see that global climate change is very real. And that for some people, their day consists of walking 12 miles for four buckets of water. And so there are lessons that you can’t get out of a book that are waiting for you at the other end of that flight. A lot of people—Americans and Europeans—come back and go, ohhhhh. And the light bulb goes on.”― Henry Rollins
“My main goal is to stay alive. To keep fooling myself into hanging around. To keep getting up every day. Right now I live without inspiration. I go day to day and do the work because it’s all I know. I know that if I keep moving I stand a chance. I must keep myself going until I find a reason to live. I need one so bad. On the other hand maybe I don’t. Maybe it’s all bullshit. Nothing I knew from my old life can help me here. Most of the things that I believed turned out to be useless. Appendages from someone else’s life.Everything I have I would give to not know what I know. To not feel emptiness as my constant companion. To not look into this room and be reminded why I’m in it. I’m not getting enough air. The room feels so small all of a sudden. It’s pathetic to be this lonely and know it. To keep breathing. To be silent and alone. And to know.”― Henry Rollins
“When life hands you a lemon, say, ‘Oh yeah, I like lemons! What else ya got?”― Henry Rollins
“Respect is not a one way street”― Henry Rollins
“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.”― Henry Rollins
“Nothing brings people together more than mutual hatred.”― Henry Rollins
“Yes, I guess you could say I am a loner
but I feel more lonely in a crowed room with boring people than I feel on my own”― Henry Rollins
“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.”― Henry Rollins
“Best not to mix the past with the present. The present paints the past with gold. The past paints the present with lead.”― Henry Rollins
“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.”― Henry Rollins
“I could fall in love with a cruel desert that kills without passion, a canyon full of scorpions, one thousand blinding arctic storms, a century sealed in a cave, a river of molten salt flowing down my throat. But never with you.”― Henry Rollins, Roomanitarian
“When she comes
She pulls you close
She breathes in short bursts
Her eyes close
Her head tilts back
Her mouth opens slightly
Her thighs turn to steel, and then melt
She is perfect
And you feel like you are everything.”
― Henry Rollins
“Maybe some things are better left broken and scattered
Veiled in darkness, secret bitterness and self-doubt
I should have known better
Than to start something that I couldn’t finish
That I couldn’t care about
That I couldn’t remember starting in the first place
I don’t want to know you
You went years without me
You might as well keep going.”
― Henry Rollins
“So where are they now? Your friends, I mean? You’re always telling me about your friends and how you would do anything for them because they are your friends and how in return, they would die for you. I didn’t believe it then and I’m not believing it now. All of your friends have gone. The good people, YOUR people, that’s what you would call them. It was hard to keep from laughing in your face when you talked like that. I always wondered if that’s what you thought I was to you, if I was one of YOUR people. You’re so full of shit and now it’s even too deep for you to deal with. The truth is that you don’t have any friends, not now, not ever. You think you’re with someone and then you find that you’re just alone in a room with a stranger. You spent so much time running away from yourself, fulfilling imaginary duties to your friends, that you don’t even know who you are. When the shit comes down, you can’t even count on yourself. Isn’t that a shame. Get ready for one of the longest nights ever.”― Henry Rollins
“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.”― Henry Rollins
“After…
The seas have dried out
The trains have come to a shrieking holt
The hounds of the abyss cease to howl
The prisons have closed their doors
The pigs have no one to arrest except themselves
The drugs no longer have an effect
When it’s all over
All I’ll remember is you”― Henry Rollins
“Sometimes I would get invited to a party or to go out to dinner by one
of them and I would decline. Part of me wanted to go, but those kind of
outings always made me feel even more alienated than usual. Hearing them
talk made me feel lonely and hateful at the same time. Lonely because I
didn’t fit in, never did. When I was reminded, it hurt. And hateful
because it reaffirmed what I already knew, that I was alone and on the
outside.”― Henry Rollins
“I do my best to limit the amount of compromise in my life so I have more time to do what I want. Not hanging out with many people really helps. I am not a people person and I spend a great deal of time on my own and in this environment, I get a lot done.”― Henry Rollins
“My love is a thousand French poets puking black blood on your Cure CD collection.”― Henry Rollins
“I will do my best to dodge tonight’s depression
Hide in sleep
Damage myself in dreams
Wake up older, slightly more used.”― Henry Rollins
“I know you’ll never love me but maybe you’ll stay for awhile.”― Henry Rollins
“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?”― Henry Rollins
“Don’t push me
I’ve got a corner at my back
I’ve nowhere to go except over you.”― Henry Rollins
“Is there anything here I can call my own? A feeling? A moment? Anything? Will there ever be a time when I am truly loved? When I’ll know it and not wonder if it’s real? Is there something I can protect and love and care about? Is there a truth I can keep that has no fear attached? Will there ever be a time when I can be somewhere and it will feel like home? Will there ever be a time when I will look around me and know I am finally in the place I am supposed to be? Is there anything here, anything I can see, while I breathe and breathe, trying to stay alive long enough to just be able to be here and know that I am here? Not just any here but the here I am supposed to be in. Is there anything that I can call mine that will not eventually be take from me? Is there anything, anyone, ever?”― Henry Rollins
“How memories lie to us. How time coats the ordinary with gold. How it breaks the heart to go back and attempt to re-live them. How crushed we are when we discover that the gold was merely gold-plating thinly coated over lead, chalk and peeling paint.”― Henry Rollins
“A rose trapped inside a fist.”― Henry Rollins
“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.”― Henry Rollins
“I want you bad like a natural disaster. You are all I see. You are the only one I want to know.”― Henry Rollins
“ You can get what you want. Never sell out. Don’t break. Don’t weaken. Don’t let the kindness of strangers be your salvation, for it is no salvation at all. Unless you sleep alone, you sleep with the enemy. Never come out of the storm. On the other hand, maybe you should. You don’t have what it takes to go the hard way. Come out of the cold and sit by the fire. Let them warm you with the smiles and promise of friendship’s fortune. Lose your edge. A soft body and chained mind suit you. Chances are you don’t have what it takes to walk the frozen trail. Stay home and relax.”― Henry Rollins
“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.”― Henry Rollins
“Somewhere, someone isn’t impressed by your looks. Not all men jump through the hoops of your fire. You’re unbelievably boring to more people than you’ll ever know.”― Henry Rollins
“I’m packed with broken glass and memories and it all hurts.”― Henry Rollins
“Don’t hide behind the Constitution or the Bible. If you’re against gay marriage, just be honest, put a scarlet ‘H’ on your shirt, and say, ‘I am a homophobe!”― Henry Rollins
“I look at pictures of you because I am afraid that you would notice me staring in real life. I looked at your picture today for countless minutes. It is closer than I’ll ever get to you for real. I felt like I was looking at a captured animal at a safe distance. If you knew I was doing this, you would feel sickened and frightened. That’s why you’ll never know. Years will go by and you’ll never know. I will never say the things that I want to say to you. I know the damage it would do. I love you more than I hate my loneliness and pain.”― Henry Rollins
“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.”― Henry Rollins
“You can find me in the frozen mood section.”― Henry Rollins
“I would like to be able to say that she broke my heart but I know better. I broke my own heart. I can’t say that she did it and get behind that statement in any real way. I know too much. The only one I can blame for my loneliness is myself. Even if I did think that she did it to me I wouldn’t feel any better. Tonight I was watching a movie and this actor in the film looked like her when she had a profile shot. She did not break my heart I did. I don’t know why I would do something this painful to myself. I wish I would stop it’s been months now and I’m still hurting myself nightly. I can avoid it for awhile and then it comes back.”― Henry Rollins
“I would like to be able to gently drift in and out of existence when I wanted to.”― Henry Rollins
“I am well protected Too locked up Inside myself To get free”― Henry Rollins
“I got my heart broken. My spirit got shattered and mutilated. I will not be coming back from this. I don’t want to.”― Henry Rollins, Solipsist
“Anyone who wants to help me doesn’t. Anyone who wants to kill me might. Anyone who wants to love me better not.”― Henry Rollins, Eye Scream
“My feelings for you shame me into silence.”― Henry Rollins, Solipsist
“I’ll be here tomorrow If I can make it through today.”― Henry Rollins
“My dick is a macho shithead but the rest of me is a sensitive, caring and gentle guy.”― Henry Rollins
“Books are cool, but knowledge without mileage doesn’t mean anything to me.”― Henry Rollins
“Sometimes it’s not catastrophic. Sometimes you only come to the bottom of your coffee cup. Sometimes you have a good day. No one wants to know. No one wants to tell you about theirs either. You might somehow take it. Turn it against them. See the flaw. You always tell them the whole thing sucks. It keeps you alive. They figure if you’re out there having a rotten time, everything’s fine and you’re doing your part. No one will ever try to take your bad times away from you but they’ll come swarming for your happiness.”― Henry Rollins
“When I am near people, I can’t hear the wind. Nights are wasted when spent around others”― Henry Rollins
“Have you ever experienced something so great
That years later you regretted the whole thing
Seeing the hole it left in you?”― Henry Rollins