Background Image

...

It Wasn't Until My Late Twenties That I Learned That By Working Out I Had Given Myself A Great Gift. I Learned That Nothing Good Comes Without Work And A Certain Amount Of Pain. When I Finish A Set That Leaves Me Shaking, I Know More About Myself. When Something Gets Bad, I Know It Can't Be As Bad As That Workout.

-Henry Rollins

...

Please Wait....
Translating....

It Wasn't Until My

Henry Rollins

...

It Wasn't Until My Late Twenties That I Learned That By Working Out I Had Given Myself A Great Gift. I Learned That Nothing Good Comes Without Work And A Certain Amount Of Pain. When I Finish A Set That Leaves Me Shaking, I Know More About Myself. When Something Gets Bad, I Know It Can't Be As Bad As That Workout.

Views: 11

Topic

More From Henry Rollins

I Don't Need To Have My Convictions Confirmed By A Show Of Numbers. However, Being Among People In Front Of A Band Leads Me To Believe That All Is Not Lost, That Humans, Now And Then, Can Communicate On A Higher Level Than The Political And The Practical.

When You Title Yourself, You Immediately Lend Yourself To All Kinds Of Pretension

With Age, Life Becomes Complex And Difficult, Often Fraught With Risk On Several Levels, From The Practical To The Fiscal.

When The Iron Doesn't Want To Come Off The Mat, It's The Kindest Thing It Can Do For You. If It Flew Up And Went Through The Ceiling, It Wouldn't Teach You Anything.

My Feelings For You Shame Me Into Silence.

I Like The Idea Of Someone Else’s Love Safely Sealed In A Song Or A Book.

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 Like Boring Black And White Films With Subtitles. I'm Basically A Drip.

Black And White

I'd Like To Rid Myself Of Writing, To Surrender, To Release The Venom. And Hopefully At Some Point, I'll Be A Happy, Well-adjusted Guy And I'll Have No Need For All That 'art.'

Fish Is The Only Kind Of Respirating Thing That I Consume. Everything Else I Don't Want Any Part Of.

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 That One Of The Hardest Things In The World To Be Is A Black Male. I Mean Everyone Hates Your Guts. White Men Are Afraid Of You. White Women Are Afraid Of You. The Cops Hate You. The Government Wants You Dead. Your Own People Want To Shoot You For What You Got. You Just Can't Get Over It. And Even If You Are Able To Get Over It You're Forced To Do It On The White Guy's Terms.

There Is No Better Way To Fight Weakness Than With Strength. Once The Mind And Body Have Been Awakened To Their True Potential, It's Impossible To Turn Back.

For Many Years, My Favorite Director Has Been The Japanese Giant Akira Kurosawa.

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.

Hope Is The Last Thing A Person Does Before They Are Defeated.

A Text Conversation Is A Short Exchange Of Often Grossly Truncated Language That Corresponds To A Thought Made All The More Shallow By The Process.

Republicans Just Can't Help Themselves. They Get In Front Of A Live Microphone And Within A Few Sentences Are Rocketing Down The Swiftest And Most Direct Route To The All-you-can-eat Comedian-and-talk-show-host Buffet.

You Have To Realize There Are Other People, Other Economies, Governments, Cultures, Religions, And Destinies Going On At The Same Time As Yours. You Have To Widen The Scope Of Your Lens And Start Seeing More.

Culture Religion

My First Introduction To African Music Was By My Mother, Who Bought The 'pata Pata' Album By The Great Miriam Makeba When It Came Out. Now That Is An Album. What A Voice.

I'm Not Much Of An Improv Guy. That's A Talent I Don't Have.

With Writing, There Are Multiple Drafts. On Stage, There Is One Take. I Do A Lot Of Preparation For Shows, So, For The Most Part, What You Hear Me Say Is Pretty Much What I Wanted To Get At.

I Have No Pride About Anything I Have Done. It's Just Not The Way I Think About Things. I Do The Work, Always, As Hard As I Can, To The Point Of Pain, Injury, Exhaustion, If That Is What It Takes. Once I Am Done, I Move On.

Never Once Have I Thought That Social Security Would Be Something That Would Ever Be Available To Me.

I'm Not A Young Man, And I Can Find Intensity In A Lot Of Different Ways, Sometimes Without Even Raising My Voice. When I Was Younger, It Was All About How I Need Three Extra Sets Of Lungs To Get Enough Wind To Get Out The Thing At The Screaming Level I Need To, Because That's The Way It Needs To Be. Now, I See That There's A Whole Lot Of Other Colors On The Palette.

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 Come From A Minimum Wage Working World, As We All Did For At Least Some Part Of Our Lives, And That Is Never Out Of My Rearview. I've Never Forgotten How Much Your Feet Hurt After You've Stood On Them For Like 12 Hours. And How The Drudgery Of A Job You Hate Craps On Your Entire Life; How You Treat Other People, How You Treat Yourself, And It Really Was Getting To Me.

The Only Safety Is In The Middle Of Total Misunderstanding And Deception.

I Warn People, Your 40s Will Require Massive Amounts Of Humor And Humility.

I'm Not Harmful, Just Introspective. You Can Probably Think I'm Weird, But It's Not Harmful Weird.

It's Hard To Get People At A Record Company To Talk About Music. They Don't Seem To Want To Talk About Music, It's All Marketing, And That's Part Of A Record, You Gotta Get It Out There, People Have Gotta Hear It, But You Could Do It In A Way That's Not Repulsive.

Some Soldier Will Say, 'you Know, Sir, You And I Have Some Political Disagreements, But I'm Glad You Came All The Way Out Here.' And You Know, You Say, 'well, Maybe One Day You'll See The Light But I'm Glad To Be Out Here With You.'

To Me, The Real 'state Of The Union' Is Found In How Americans React To Current Events.

In Fact, Every Place I've Been To In Africa Has A Nice Part, But You See The Downside. Calcutta , Parts Of Central And South America , I've Seen A Lot Of Dead Bodies And A Lot Of Sad Poverty And Just Obliteration.

Well, There's Katrina, But You Can Go Through Lots Of Kurdistan And It Looks Like Katrina Was Just There But There's People Living In It.

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.

Why Let Your Fury Lay Deep Inside You, Sullenly Boiling Your Blood Into Silent Steam And Griding Your Bones To Dust? I It Not Better To Thrust It Out With Great Velocity From Every Pore, With Your Every Action? Let Your Actions Speak Your Legend. The Physical Is The Manifestation Of The Spirit. Let Your Spirit Be Teeming With Fury. Let Your Strength Be Unusual And Controlled. The Average Is The Borderline That Keeps Mere Men In Their Place. Those Who Step Over The Line Are Heroes By The Very Act. Go.

Rush Limbaugh Makes Money Getting Simpleminded People To Feel Good About Their Intellectually Undernourished Brain Spasms. He's Very Good At It, And I Scarcely Believe A Fraction Of What He Says.

I Was A Very Repressed Young Person. I Wasn't Good At School. I Didn't Fit In.

Michele Bachmann Is Always A Great Person To Go To For An Opinion About Anything. She Has A Very Active And Interesting Mind.

I Was Happy To Find Out That When On Tour, Dolly Parton Doesn't Use Hotels But Stays On Her Bus Every Night, To The Point Of Having Her Buses Shipped From Austria To Australia So She Can Tour The Way She Sees Fit. I Used One Of Her Buses Once - An Honor.

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.

Castle Face Records, Run By The Oh Sees Main Man, Johnny Dwyer Is Always Worth Checking In With.

Sometimes When You Meet A Musician You Are A Fan Of, And He Or She Isn't The Friendliest Person, You Walk Away From The Experience Wondering If You Will Ever Be Able To Listen To Their Music Again.

We City Dwellers, We Residents Of Los Angeles And The Surrounding Areas, Are For The Most Part Urbanized To Some Extent. We Know Deadlines, Start Times And Traffic.

What Goes Best With A Cup Of Coffee? Another Cup.

Every Single Record I Have Is A Fossil.

Anywhere You Hang Yourself Is Home.

Love Beyond The Damage.

Since The Last Tour I Have Done A Lot Of Extensive Travel To Iraq, Kuwait, Siberia, South Korea And Other Places And Picked Up Some Hopefully Interesting Stories. We Are Living In Interesting Times And As Bad As Things Are, I Draw Considerable Inspiration From Some Of The Things I'm Seeing And People I'm Meeting. I'm Looking Forward To Getting Out On The Road And Talking About It All.

Sleep Is For Squares.

People Who Keep A Large Snake In Their Apartment Building, Which Happens Quite A Bit, All Of A Sudden, Within Two Summers, Have A 14-foot Animal That's Eating Adult Rabbits, And Needs Quite A Bit Of Room And Quite A Bit Of Heat. That's The Animal That Gets Put In The Back Of A Pick-up Truck And Dumped Into The Florida Everglades Or The City Lake, Or Just Left On A Doorstep - Again, It's Quite Often The Animal That Suffers.

For Me, Jazz Will Always Be The Soundtrack Of The Civil Rights Movement.

I Don't Want To Pass Through Life Like A Smooth Plane Ride.

I'm Terrified Of Motorcycles. I've Been On One A Couple Of Times. I Did Not Like It.

Don’t Think About It. Do It. Don’t Talk About It. Do It.

Black Sabbath - One Of The World's Universal Language Of Music. I Felt Proud, For Three Or Four Minutes Of My Life Combining My Voice With Tony Iommi's Guitar Sound.

All My Big Heroes Are Literary, Writers. I'd Love To Meet Jimmy Hendrix Or John Coltrane, But I'd Much Rather Meet Thomas Wolfe, Or F. Scott Fitzgerald. Words And Books Have Always Meant A Lot To Me. That Someone Can Take Words And String Them Together To Where They Will Move Me Is Just A Hell Of A Thing. It's Amazing To Me; More Amazing To Me Than Music Or Painting. It's Always Been The Written Word Or The Spoken Word, Like A Great Lecture Or A Great Lyric, Or A Great Poem. To Me It's Just Amazing. And I Always Aspire Toward Capturing That, Or My Version Of It.

Rarely Do I Do Film Press Because I'm So Low On The Food Chain Of The Movie, And For Me It's Just This Thing I Did For Four Weeks Before The Next Tour Started.

Try Driving The Streets Of Los Angeles Without Seeing A Billboard Depicting A Film With A Lead Actor Holding A Gun. It's Almost As If Guns Are Harmless Props Used To Bring Out The Cheekbones And Jawline Of The Screen Star.

I Work Pretty Much Every Day. I Can't Really Separate It From Life, So I Guess The Work Is My Life.

This Is My Own Little Rock Theory: In My Mind, Nirvana Slayed The Hair Bands. They Shot The Top Off The Poodles.

My Acting Range Is Incredibly Limited And Narrow, But I'm A Good Heavy. I'm A Good Authoritarian Figure; I Don't Know Why. "can You Be A Cop?" Sure. "can You Be A Marine?" Absolutely. Well, At Least In A Movie.

Loneliness Adds Beauty To Life. It Puts A Special Burn On Sunsets And Makes Night Air Smell Better.

Bands Have Always Written Songs Against What They See As Wrong. Ronald Reagan Really Made For A Lot Of Songs.

I Will Take The Acting Work When I Can Get It. I Am Not Really An Actor, That's Always Apparent But It's Work And I'll Take It And Am Always Glad For It.

I'll Never Forget How The Depression And Loneliness Felt Good And Bad At The Same Time. Still Does.

When Someone Asks You, 'what's Punk?' My Reply Is, 'if You Have To Ask, You're Never Going To Know.'

For Many Years, I Tried To Make New Year's Resolutions. I Made Lists And Shot For Great Heights: I Would Show Altruism And Exert Moral Strength, Patience And All Those Other Great Attributes.

South Sudan Is One Of The Most Hard-put Places In The World.

If You Watch A Stretch Of Tv For A Few Hours, There Is A Good Chance You'll Hear Me On Some Commercial Or In Some Documentary Or On A Cartoon As Some Voice Of A Character.

And I Love The Hate Mail I Get, The Unsigned, Misspelled Letters I Get Telling Me To Go Back To Russia Or Wherever.

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

Punk-rock Gave Music Back To People. For A Long Time, When I Was Very Young, I Went To Go See Arena Rock Bands. I Was 16 And It Was All I Could Get In To See, Legally. And I Saw Led Zeppelin And Ted Nugent And Van Halen And All That. Me And [minor Threat And Fugazi Vocalist] Ian Mackaye Would Go To These Concerts, And It Was Fun.

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.

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.

Technically Speaking, There Is No Music Whatsoever On A Cd. Lots Of Information, But No Music.

I'm A Recognizable Person And Some People Feel The Need For Some Reason To Take Me To Task. You're Really Messing With The Wrong Person On That One.

I'm Trying To Be Confrontational And Direct. If I Lack Directness Then I Only Have Myself To Blame Because I Lack The Skills To Make My Point Clear.

The Idea That Any Performer Type Is Owed Anything Is A Joke To Me.

I'd Like To Talk To Sean Hannity In A Controlled Environment And Say, 'o.k., You Can't Interrupt And Jump Up And Down Like A Professional Wrestler.'

Nothing Brings People Together More, Than Mutual Hatred.

I've Never Raped Or Killed Anybody, Or Hurt A Kid. I've Done All The More Inept, High-volume Stuff - Like, "whoops, Sorry I Came In Your Hair. Don't Worry, I Won't Use Your Name When I Tell This Story On Stage."

I Have Always Identified With Joan Didion's Depiction Of Los Angeles And Southern California, Ever Since Reading 'play It As It Lays,' 'slouching Towards Bethlehem' And 'the White Album.'

The More You Own, The More It Owns You.

If I Was Gay, There’d Be No Closet. You’d Never See The Closet I Came Out Of. Why? I Would Have Burned It For Kindling By The Time I Was Twelve! Because I Know, With All Certainty In My Mind, There’s Nothing Wrong With Being Gay And You Know It! And There’s Nothing Wrong With Being Into Chicks If You’re A Girl. And There’s Nothing Wrong With Being Into All Of It…. How Awesome Would It Be To Be Bisexual? To Just Walk Into A Room And Go ‘mmmm, Alright!!!!’

Being In New York Is An Almost Overwhelming Experience. While Washington, D.c., Is My Favorite American City, I Regard New York City As The Most Amazing City In The World. No Other Comes Close. It Is An Incredible, Inexhaustible Engine.

If You're Crazy Enough To Put Your Hat Into The Ring Of Speculation And Punditry, You're Going To Get Some Turbulence. But If It's Coming From Some Journalist With A Comfortable Degree Of Body Fat, I'm Not Losing Any Sleep Over It.

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.

It Is Just That I Don't Want A Wife And I Don't Want Kids.

Americans Have Been Dumbed Down To The Point Where More People Watching 'american Idol' Than Listen To The State Of The Union Address. And That's Too Bad. I'm Not Trying To Take Any Bread Out Of The Mouth Of Simon Cowell, But If The President Is Speaking To The People Of The United States, And People Are Going To Watch 'american Idol,' That's Sad.

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.

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 Do A Lot Of Stuff For Free Anyway. Like A Lot Of People Who You See Who Don't Need Money. Mick Jagger - He Needs Money? He Just Likes To Go Sing Satisfaction Every Night. If I Wrote That Song I Probably Would Do It Too.

Let's Pretend My Career In Music Is A Bell. Whether You Like My Music Or Not Is Up To You. But You've Got To Admit I Rang That Bell Pretty Hard And Pretty Often.

My Whole Access Into Culture Was Violent. Violence Is Something I Understand. Don't Like It, Don't Condone It, But I Sure Understand Where It Comes From.

When People Make My Country Look Bad, I Can't Stand It.

I'd Like To Be A Better Writer, But I Have No Dreams To Direct Or Do A Screenplay. And I'd Love To Have A Big Starring Role In A Movie Because The Paycheck Would Be Bigger. That's The Only Reason I Do Films.

I'm Of The Opinion That The Democrats Have The Ideas I Agree With More Often Than Not. Reenergizing The Middle Class And Giving People A Break.

Rock Is Ironic In That, Up To A Certain Point, You Can Get Better And Better At It If You Don't Mind Possibly Looking More And More Ridiculous.

There Is No Way You Are Going To Be Forgiven For Blowing Up A Village And Killing A Bunch Of People.

The Material You Work With Is That Which You Will Come To Resemble. That Which You Work Against Will Always Work Against You, Including Yourself.

If I Had To Live My Life In Anticipation Of What Others Thought Of Me, Little Would Get Done.

The Bad Seeds Are A Band I Will Travel A Great Distance To See Whenever Possible.

I Can Say That American Men And Women In The Military Are Damn Impressive.

The Month Of November Makes Me Feel That Life Is Passing More Quickly. In An Effort To Slow It Down, I Try To Fill The Hours More Meaningfully.

Nietzsche, Who You Don't Spend Too Much Time With After The Age Of Seventeen, Did Have That One Great Line About "he Who Stares Into The Abyss Must Know That The Abyss Also Stares Into Him" And I Never Really Understood That Until My Friend Got Killed And You Really Get Your Head Around The Idea Of What Horror Means. It's A Truly Awful Thing, To Really, Kind Of Have That Understanding Of Things And When You Really Peer Into That.

Football Is At Least As 'gay' As Rugby, Greco-roman Wrestling And The Film '300.'

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.

Sometimes You Can Get So Far In Yourself That You Don't Know Who You Are.

I Want To Change Things For The Better, Just Like Everybody Else.

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.

I Am An Employment Hyena. I Am Happy To Make A Meal Of What The Lions Leave Behind.

America Has 2.2 Million Of It's Citizens Incarcerated. It's A Statistic We Should Be Ashamed Of.

It Is Impossible, After A Certain Point, To Go Back To A Previous Way Of Life, A Previous Way Of Thinking.

I'm 36 And If I Met A Woman Of My Own Age And Married Her, I'd Also Be Marrying Her Former Life, Her Past. It Might Be Ok For Some People - I Don't Want To Judge It Or Anything - But It's Not For Me. It Would Destroy My Creativity.

Retirement In Another Country Is Your Body Is Too Racked With Pain And Your Hands Are Too Arthritic From The Life In The Rice Patty Fields, So You Can't Work Anymore.

I Want To Meet A Woman That Will Make Me Stop And Listen To What She Has To Say. I Want A Woman Who Will Make My Jaw Drop In Awe. A Woman That Has Little Time For Me. One Who Does Not Throw Herself At Me. One Who Respects Herself Who Has A Sense Of Herself. Where Is She

There Are Religions And Social And Moral Awareness In Any Society That Gets Passed Immediately. Those Human Truths. All Cultures Address Them.

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?

Change Is Hard, But Change Is Good.

I Used To Love You I Still Do So Selfish I Love The Old You The You That Didnt Shoot Drugs ...the You That Didnt Get Beat On By Men You Laugh In My Face And Call Me A Fool But Its True I Still Love You Sometimes,i Can See The Old You When Your Eyes Flash When You Almost Look Alive

George Zimmerman Is A Foot Soldier In A Rapidly Privatizing Country. He Is A New Centurion Of 21st-century America. Law Enforcement Is Tied Down By The Strictures Of, Well, The Law. There Is Only 'so Much They Can Do' To Take Care Of The 'problem.'

As A Teen, I Heard The Second Velvet Underground Album, 'white Light/white Heat,' And It Was Too Much For My Limited Scope Of Appreciation. It Was Intense, But I Didn't Get It.

Books Are Cool, But Knowledge Without Mileage Doesn't Mean Anything To Me.

There Is No Place In The World Like Australia. Not Even Its Beautiful Neighbor New Zealand.

I Slept In Uday Hussein's Bed - That Was Just So Strange. Went To Saddam's Palace, Was In A Mortar Attack - Crazy Stuff. And Like Three Days Later You're Back In Traffic On Sunset Boulevard. It's All Kind Of Behind You, Which Is Kind Of Perfect For A Guy Like Me Because I Can Take That And Turn It Into Quite The Tale.

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.

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.

If You Really Want To Rebel Against Your Parents: Outearn Them, Outlive Them, And Know More Than They Do.

If I Was A Woman These Days, I'd Be Killing Motherfuckers. My Handgun Would Never Cool And My Hands Would Be Covered In Testicular Blood. I Would Have A Horrible Reputation With A Lot Of Men Because I Would Be Calling Them On Their Weak Bullshit Left And Right.

To Combat The Confusion And Depression That Assault Me When I Come Off The Road In The Middle Of A Tour, I Seek The Most Oblivionated Music Possible. When It's The 'way Out There' That I Seek, I Go Right To My Stash Of Amazing Music From Japan.

Most Of The People Who Call Me A Sellout Were 7 When I Was Down Face-first In The Punk Trenches.

It's Difficult For Me To Be Around Anyone For Longer Than An Hour. Love, Death, Elation, Sorrow, I Just Don't Care All That Much About Any Of It. I Am At This Point, More Of An Observer/journalist.

I Get A Lot Of Shit Because I Put "i" In The Lyrics All The Time. The "i" Is Always For Someone Else... When I Say "i," It's So That When That Person Is Singing Along With The Song, It Empowers Them.

I've Always Seen It As The Role Of An Artist To Drag His Inside Out, Give The Audience All You've Got. Writers, Actors, Singers, All Good Artists Do The Same. It Isn't Supposed To Be Easy.

Discipline Is Money In The Bank. A Real Friend, True Strength.

Whenever I Write Lyrics, In The Back Of My Mind I Always See A Guy Driving To Work, Driving To A Really Bad Job, One Of Those Horrible Institutions, Or One Of Those Low Squat Buildings In Los Angeles. I Write With That Person In My Mind.

I Just Work, To The Exclusion Of Most Other Things. I Rarely Work In A Frenzied Manner, Just Kind Of - If You Take The Beater That Whips The Icing Or The Eggs Into Shape - On The Upper End Of Medium Speed, That's Kind Of How I Am About Seven Days A Week.

I Don't Cuss In Songs. It's Too Easy.

I Don't Have Any Spiritual Anything.you Shoot A Guy With A Gun, He Dies. You Step On A Bug, The Bug Dies. There Is No Heaven For Me And No Hell. And Certainly Not Any Karma.

I Am A Pretty Crazy Person, So It's Best For Me To Be On My Own Most Of The Time.

I Have Lived In Public As A Somewhat Recognizable Person Since I Was A Teenager. Emails I Answer End Up Posted On Sites; Pictures Of Me And Someone I Just Met, Taken By A Cellphone, Literally Number In The Thousands And Are Easily Accessed.

This Is My 25th Year Of Being On Stage. A Lot Of People Who I Kind Of Toed Up To The Starting Line With Are No Longer In This Position. I Feel Very, Very Lucky.

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.

Basically, Men Are Afraid Of Women And Can’t Handle The Fact That They Came Out Of The Same Thing They Spend The Rest Of Their Lives Trying To Get Back Into.

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 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.

I Try To Be Well Informed. I Don't Know How Well I Do All The Time, But I Try Nonetheless.

I Get Tired Of Talking When I Want To Be Silent.

I'm Always Looking Upwards And Looking Forwards And So When Someone Says, "hey, Would You Consider A Tv Show?" I Say, "hell Yeah, I'll Consider That. I'll Check That Out."

Juan Williams Is A Very Sharp Guy.

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’m Packed With Broken Glass And Memories And It All Hurts.

I Don't Consider Myself An Actor, For Me It's Employment. Like The Actor Who's A Waiter A Lot, I'm An Actor When I'm Not On Tour, In That That's A Job I Can Do.

We Americans Are Hard On Almost Everything. We Are Hard On Our Vehicles, Our Marriages And Our Heroes. Mostly, However, We Are Hard On Ourselves.

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 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.

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 Never Had Any Interest In Being Involved With The Boy Scouts.

Not That The Writers Weren't Good. I Believe In Those Books And Those Writers Very Much. It's Just That In The Climate It's Really Hard To Keep The Lights On And The Doors Open When You're Selling Poetry And Literature That Appeals To A Fringe Audience.

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.

Even Though I Am Not Hungry When I Get Up, I Try To Eat To Get Me Ready For The Day. Within An Hour Of Getting Up.

I Got My Heart Broken. My Spirit Got Shattered And Mutilated. I Will Not Be Coming Back From This. I Don’t Want To.

Americans Are Poorly Served By Their Media, You Know, For The War Machine And Propaganda Machine And The Global Empire And They're Poorly Served By What They Are Being Told Is Representative Government.

I Would Like To Be Able To Gently Drift In And Out Of Existence When I Wanted To.

Before The Civil War, The Southern States Were Selling A Lot Of Cotton To England And Didn't Seem To Mind British Occupation. By And Large, The Revolutionary War Wasn't At All Great For Business.

As Far As Poetry, I Don't Know If I've Ever Written Any. I've Read A Lot. I Just Write And It Comes Out In Different Forms And Shapes. I Don't Know If I'm Any Good At It I Just Really Go For It And I'm Very Prolific Book Wise Only Because I Own The Company. No One Tells Me 'no' Around Here.

My Fear Is Naked, I'm Naked And Fearless, And My Fear Is Naked...

Always Knowing You're Going To Die And Until Then Knowing You've Got To Live.

Now And Then, Someone Is Able To Look At An Empty Space, Conclude It Would Be A Great Place To Start A Revolution, And Bravely Go Forward.

Look, It's A Monster. He's Walking Alone. Look, He's Pulling Something Out Of His Pocket. He Threw It On The Ground. Let's Go See What It Is. It's A Black Box. You Open It... Ok... Look, It's Sorrow, Misery And Pain. It's Loneliness And Longing. Boy, He'll Be Sorry He Lost These.

In Winter, I Plot And Plan. In Spring, I Move.

Spending Time In Calcutta [india] Really Did A Number On Me. The Way Life And Death Are Almost The Same Thing, The Way Poverty Is Dealt With, The Sheer Number Of Dead Bodies You See, It's All Pretty Overwhelming.

I'm Not Trying To Amass People In The Streets. I Just Want Them To Be More Aware. So Many Americans, For One Reason Or Another, They Watch The News And It Doesn't Really Give Them The Idea Of The World. Or They Don't Read Or Travel. They Have No Idea That America Is Part Of The World And Not The World Itself. And So Anything From The Travel Stories I Tell, That's What I'm Trying To Get Across.

Giving A Good Performance, Giving It All Is What It's All About. I Love To Perform.

I Like The Idea Of Going Out With A Woman And Not Doing Anything, And Just Eating Dinner And Talking, And That's Cool, Too. So, Someone Might Look At Me And Say, "no Way, Man. He's Just Banging Strippers." And I Do That, But Not All The Time.

For The Last 30-plus Years, I Have Been Doing One Long, Uninterrupted Improv.

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.

What If Americans Were All Judged By The Actions Of The Bush Administration And People Did Not Know The Truth? That America Is Full Of People Who Are, At Present, Poorly Represented And Poorly Catered To By The Media.

I'm Just Shallow And Self-interested, And Don't Get Out Much Because I'm Afraid Of Real Commitments.

When I See The Hatred Exacted At Mr. Obama - You Know, He Lowered Your Taxes, Killed Your Number One Bad Guy And Got Your Guys Out Of Iraq - I Don't Understand Why He Seems To Inflame People So Much. You Know, Unless, Unless There's A Race Problem.

You Might As Well Enjoy The Day - You Never Know When And How Painfully It Could All End.

Death Metal Uses A Lot Of White Face Paint And Black Hair Dye To Make Its Point. I Quite Enjoy This Genre For Its Intensity, Extremism And Underlying Irony: You Have To Be Alive To Play It And Listen To It.

The Reality Is That We Are Going To Have Problems With Water In This Century. And The Fact That We Are Going To Have Problems With Fossil Fuel Is A Given.

I Don't Have Many Friends So The Phone Doesn't Ring And No One's Asking Me To Go Out And Go Dancing With Them.

Pride Is Not A Word Or Sentiment I Can Ascribe To Anything I Have Done Or Do. As Far As Regret, It Is A Luxury I Can Not Afford. Anything I Did, That Was Bad Or Wrong Or Regretful, I Stand Accused, I Am Guilty And I'm Ready To Serve My Time.

Scott Asheton Was A Brilliant Drummer, A Natural Musician.

I Spend A Lot Of Time Alone So I Get A Lot Done. I Don't Do Much Else But Work, Check Things Out.

You Can Still Function As A Living Ruin.

I've Never Been In A Situation Where I Had To Run For My Life, But I've Been Bitten By A Lot Of Poisonous Snakes Where It Was Fairly Painful. Pythons Of Size Have A Lot Of Teeth In That Mouth, It's A Painful Bite And Those Wounds Get Infected Fairly Easily. I've Got Snake Wounds From These Animals That Have Lasted Quite A While Where It'll Ache For Several Days. Having Said That, I've Been Lucky; It's Not Like I'm Looking For Trouble With These Animals Either. It's Not An Envelope I'm Willing To Push.

The Destructive Power Of A Lie Is Stronger Than The Truth.

As Long As I Tell The Truth I Feel That Nobody Can Touch Me.

Telling The Truth

I'm Not Interested In Censorship. I Like The First Amendment Very Much.

First Amendment

It Is Amazing To Hear Grown-up People Rationalize Homophobia And Discrimination. The Lengths They Go To Trying To Prove Their Points Take Reason To Its Breaking Point.

I Think It's Important To Have Some Documentation Of The Past.

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

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.

Trying To Write Music, Be In A Band And Keep It All Happening Is One Of The Hardest, Morale-destroying, Heartbreaking Things You Will Ever Try To Do - And That's When It's Going Well.

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.

Trending Author

James Lee Burke

Rainer Maria Rilke

Category