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Mr. Christ, I Read You As An Infinitely Patient Entity Who, As They Say, Often Works In Mysterious Ways, A Rebel Unafraid To Take The Tougher, Less Traveled Paths. Seems To Me You're Playing The Long Game. Is That Why More States Are Coming Out In Favor Of Marriage Equality? Is That Why The Affordable Care Act Is Now With Us?

-Henry Rollins

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Mr. Christ, I Read

Henry Rollins

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Mr. Christ, I Read You As An Infinitely Patient Entity Who, As They Say, Often Works In Mysterious Ways, A Rebel Unafraid To Take The Tougher, Less Traveled Paths. Seems To Me You're Playing The Long Game. Is That Why More States Are Coming Out In Favor Of Marriage Equality? Is That Why The Affordable Care Act Is Now With Us?

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The First Several Years Of My Life Were Used To Upload Incredible Amounts Of Fear, And I Just Became Afraid Of Everything. I Was Afraid Of My Parents, Afraid Of My Classmates, Afraid Of The Streets Of Washington, D.c. I Would Flinch At Every Gesture.

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

When I Am In Africa, I Realize I Don't Know Much, Have Not Seen Much, And There's A Lot To Be Done.

It Took Me Until My Teenage Years To Realize That I Was Medicating With Music. I Was Pushing Back Against My Stupid School Uniform, Instructors Who Called Me By My Last Name And My Classmates, Who, While Friendly Enough, Were Not At All Inspiring.

I'm A Liar. I'll Rip Your Mind Up. I'll Burn Your Soul, I'll Turn You In To Me.

Songs Sung Under Duress Are Often Very Powerful.

You Can Still Function As A Living Ruin.

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.

It's Sad When Someone You Know Becomes Someone You Knew.

I'm Actually On The Twitter Like All Those Crazy Young Kids Are, And If I'm Going To Do An In-store Appearance Or I Post Something On My Website, I Tweet These Followers, A Word I Don't Like So Much, And Over 50,000 People Go, Like, 'okay, I Got It.'

In Israel, There's A Lot To Learn From Anyone, Because To Live There You've Got To Deal With The Truth. Things Happen Real Fast. Your Day Goes From Cool To Catastrophic In One Second. Israelis Know That The Cafe You're In Could Blow Up, Or The Shopping Mall, And They Rock That.

Americans Should Demand Real News, More Transparency And More Truth.

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.

For Me, Returning To Los Angeles Annihilates The Memories Of Where I Have Just Been With An Astonishing Speed.

Citizens United Didn't Work. Hey, Koch Brothers, Karl Rove, Shellgame Adelson: Democracy Trumps Money Sometimes.

Citizens United

I Think To Write Fiction, This Is Just How I See It, 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.

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.

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.

I've Enjoyed, To A Certain Extent, Any Country I've Been In, Of Course Like Serbia And Croatia Can Be Very Restrictive And Oppressive, And Frustrating, But They're Still Very Beautiful.

It Is Our Destiny To Be Born Beautiful Into An Ugly Age.

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.

'duck Dynasty' Is A Ridiculous Show, And Long May It Wave. America And Democracy Will Endure. They've Seen A Lot Worse.

The Truth Is An Anti-war Statement In Itself.

I Have To Do Things For Myself, And If Those Standards Are Set High, Then It's Up To Me To Pass Or Fail.

Every Politician, Every President Gets Votes By Getting People That Don't Like Him To Like Him. That's Why Politicians Are Slippery: Because They Talk Out Of Both Sides Of Their Mouth.

There Is A Concerted Effort To Keep You And Me, You Know, The People, Away From What It [war] Really Looks Like, 'cause When You're Selling War, When It's Such A Big Industry. What They Don't Tell You Is The Rest Of It And The Down Side Of It. And So Obviously There Is A Lot Of Money And A Lot Of Time And Effort Being Spent On That Campaign "perpetual War For Perpetual Peace".

Everything You Do Makes My Body Scream With Loneliness.

Joe Strummer, Johnny Rotten, And Ian Mackaye Were All People Who Really Made Me See Things Differently.

It's So Painful To Be Next To Someone You Feel Strongly About And Know You Can't Say The Things You Want To.

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.

The Best Revenge Is To Always Survive Yourself.

To My Ears, Jazz Sounds Better In Warm Weather And After The Sun Has Gone Down. While I Will Listen To Some Of My Favorite Jazz Records In Cooler Weather, It's The Warmer Nights That Really Make Them Come Alive. Something About Those Sounds And The Heat Of The Night Really Makes It Happen For Me.

I Know That Collector Types Can Be A Pain In The Neck And Seem Perpetually Frozen In Time - Or At Least In Their Parents' Basement - But Someone Has To Look Out For The Past, Lest It Slip Away Forever.

I Believe That One Defines Oneself By Reinvention.

I Find It Takes A Lot Of Strength To Endure Myself.

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.

I'd Love To Talk To Janeane Garafalo Or Randi Rhodes Or Stephanie Miller From Air America. I'm An Air American Junkie; I Listen To Them Every Day.

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.

I Never Thought I Was Right For Tv Or That Tv Was Right For Me.

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.

Watching A Documentary With People Hacking Their Way Through Some Polar Wasteland Is Merely A Visual. Actually Trying To Deal With Cold That Can Literally Kill You Is Quite A Different Thing.

Desperation Is The Secret To My Steady Employment. I Am Not Interested In Downtime. I Really Like To Keep Working All The Time And I Always Feel Like I'm In The Mail Room Of Life; Working Up.

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."

When Life Hands You A Lemon, Say, 'oh Yeah, I Like Lemons! What Else Ya Got?

Luckily For Me, I Genuinely Like My Audience. They Really Are A Good Bunch.

If You Want To Believe That Humans Walked With Dinosaurs And The Planet Is A Few Thousand Years Old, That Is Absolutely Fine With Me. If You Want To Teach This To Your Kids, I Don't Care. If States Want To Teach Creationism In Their Schools, There Is Nothing I Can Do About It, So I Don't Sweat It.

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 Always Found The Chicago Audience To Be A Smart, Fast-moving, Violent And Cheerful Lot, And It's Always Good To Be Back.

From Those Who Agonize That They May No Longer Be Able To Write Off Their Private Jet To Someone Who Doesn't Feel Like Making The Three Mile Hike To The Well To Get Water And Carry It Back, Everyone Struggles.

There’s One Thing About Black Sabbath Which Should Not Be Understated: If Black Sabbath Is Missing Any One Of Its Members It’s No Longer Black Sabbath.

Imagine Someone So Infatuated By A Band That They Have Every Different Pressing Of Every Album The Band Made. Most Of The Time, The Only Difference In The Album Is The Matrix Number Or A Different 'made In' Notation On The Back Cover Or Label. This Is Enough To Make Some People Extremely Excited. Actually, Much More Than Excited.

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. Because Americans, It's Easy To Make Us Freak Out. When The Going Gets Rough, You Have To Get Conservative. That's What's Happened To America In The Last Eight Years. I Just Try To Point Out That There's More Going On Than Most People Pay Attention To.

I'm Disappointed By Bands Left And Right, Every Day.

It's Hard To Keep Your Backbone Straight In America. It's Easy To Turn Into That Which You Hate, And To Get Smashed.

I Beg Young People To Travel.

August, The Summer's Last Messenger Of Misery, Is A Hollow Actor.

I Don't Get A Rush From Anything. I Did Music As Hard As I Could. Acting For Me At Least, Is A Far More Restrained Performance Than Music. It Requires A Lot Of Skill And Discipline. I'm Not Any Good At It But I Enjoy Trying To Be Good At It.

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

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

Change Is Hard, But Change Is Good.

Humans Will Take A Rain Forest And Lose It And Cover It With Concrete. They Will Take The Woods And Turn It Into A Parking Garage And I Am Not Saying That's Bad. I Am Just Saying That's What We Do. We Occupy The Planet With A Vengeance. We Seek To Dominate It.

It Is Only Our Humanity That Can Deliver Us From The Brutality Of Our Achievements.

Where There Is Young People And Vitality, You're Going To Find Punk Rock.

My First Visit To West Berlin Was In February 1983. The Drive Through East Berlin, The Fact That West Berlin Was Surrounded By A Wall That Was More Than 100 Miles Long - The Absurdity And Intensity Of It Really Knocked Me Out.

Without The Blues, Modern Music Would Be Nothing Like It Is Now - Not Remotely.

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.

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.

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.

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.

If You Have An Idea Of What You Want To Do In Your Future, You Must Go At It With Almost Monastic Obsession. [...] You Have To Go At It Single-mindedly And Let Nothing Get In Your Way.

The First Van Halen Album Makes Johnny Rotten Out To Be What He Really Was And Still Is: A Hairdresser.

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

I Travel Because I Want To Know. Books And Documentaries Will Only Get You So Far. If You Want To Know, You Will Have To Go.

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

Canadians Are Often A Friendly Bunch.

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.

Young, Gay And Stuck In Arkansas? Sounds Like A Horror Flick.

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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 Just Write What I Think Is Good And Keep It At A Thousand Words.

As Performers Grow Older, I Reckon There Are Two Ways They Can Go. They Can Either Be Up There, Playing More Deeply From Their Guts Than Ever, Or They Can Be Phoning It In So Crassly That It Leaves A Lump In Your Throat As You Leave The Venue At The End Of The Show.

If I Could Go To Kabul And Not Die, I Would Go Back To Afghanistan As Soon As I Could. And, That Was The Most Interesting Place That I've Been To.

There's Nothing New About The Government Protecting Corporations And Calling It The Freeing Of The World Or Bringing Democracy To Bereft Nations.

I Have Found The Iron To Be My Greatest Friend. It Never Freaks Out On Me, Never Runs. Friends May Come And Go. But Two Hundred Pounds Is Always Two Hundred Pounds

I Wonder If The Guy At The Gun Store Would Give Me A Discount On The Bullets I'll Need If I Told Him What I Was Up To.

If You Paid Americans A Living Wage, They Would Be Able To Pay For Products Made By Americans In America.

I Can Only Write About Personal Stuff, About My Point Of View.

Whenever Any Great Song Or Album Gets Lost In The Ether, Someone Is Deprived Of The Joy Of Hearing It, And The Great Effort Of Those Who Created And Recorded The Work Is Damaged.

The Iron Is The Best Antidepressant I Have Ever Found.

Lifting Weights

I'd Rather Work On My Radio Show, Which No One Hears But I Put About Eight Hours Of Programming And Writing Into It For Those 30 People Who Do Tune In.

I Got Three Letters Today Telling Me That I'm God. Why Can't I Pay The Rent?

I Believe In North, South, East, West, The Seasons, Life And Death, Geography. That Which Is Provable, Absolute And Most Of All, Functional. I Believe In Things That Can Kill Me.

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.

Collecting Records Is, For Many, Beyond A Hobby.

Don't Go To Summer Camp. Bury Your Parents In The Backyard And Have The Place To Yourself.

I Don't Know If You Have Ever Seen The Woody Allen Film 'annie Hall,' But It Is, In A Way, To Los Angeles And 'hollywood' What 'this Is Spinal Tap' Is To Many Musicians.

Nelson Mandela Will Always Be The Face Of South Africa. The Traveler Passing Through The Country Will See Mandela's Face Almost Everywhere He Looks. Truly, The Man Is Omnipresent.

We Humans Are Hard To Deal With. We Are A Loud, Complex And Demanding Bunch. Often, We Are Best Dealt With From A Safe Distance And For Only Brief Periods Of Time. This Could Be Why A Lot Of Marriages Fail.

With A Book, There's No Volume To Turn Up. You're Very Naked With A Book.

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

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.

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

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.

Everything I Do, Writing, Touring, Travelling, It All Comes From The Punk And Hardcore Attitude, From That Expression - From Being Open To Try Things But Relying On Yourself, Taking What You Have Into The Battle And Making Of It What You Will, Hoping You Can Figure It Out As You Go. Make Some Sense Of It.

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.

Is It A Shame That I Can’t Accept Love? Am I Too Burned Out To Move Towards What Will Keep Me Alive Or Too Smart To Get Pulled Into Someone Else’s World?

In The Worst Of Times The Best Among Us Never Lose Their Moral Compass, And That Is How They Emerge Relatively Unscathed.

Help Me To Withstand Your Beauty As It Stands Out Of Reach. Give Me The Capacity To Forget Ever Having Felt Your Touch.

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."

When You're Kept Out Of The Adult World, It's A Blessing In Disguise.

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.

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.

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.

The Civil Rights Act Of 1964 Was Vigorously And Vociferously Opposed By The Southern States. President Lyndon B. Johnson Signed It Into Law Nonetheless.

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

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.

For Myself, I Can't Understand A Life Without A Job. I Don't Know What I Would Do Without Employment. Retirement Is Out Of The Question For Me.

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

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

And I Laugh At Myself When I Screw Things Up, Which Happens All The Time.

I Can Deal With People Who Watch Me On Stage But I Am Not Good In Communicating With People Any Other Way Than Through My Work.

I'm Not Artistic Nor Am I All That Creative.

The Ruts Were A Great Punk Rock Band From England Whose Songs Were As Excellent As Their Time Together Was Short.

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.

I Think As Resources Become More Dear, We Really Need To Consider Population.

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.'

Go Without A Coat When It's Cold; Find Out What Cold Is. Go Hungry; Keep Your Existence Lean. Wear Away The Fat, Get Down To The Lean Tissue And See What It's All About. The Only Time You Define Your Character Is When You Go Without. In Times Of Hardship, You Find Out What You're Made Of And What You're Capable Of. If You're Never Tested, You'll Never Define You Character.

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.

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 Have Always Thought That Change You Can See And Feel Is Best.

At Times, I Feel America Is Something That I Can Actually Put My Arms Around, More Than A Land Mass And A Constitution, Something Far More Containable And Understandable. I Don't Exactly Know What It Is, But At These Times I Feel Completely Woven Into It.

I Like It Better That People Aren't Throwing Stuff At My Face And Trying To Fight Me On Stage. Like In The '80s, It Was Just Aggravating All The Time... I Have Scars From Cigars And Cigarettes On Me, Bic Pens, Burns From Cigarette Lighters, All That.

I Consider Any Gun That Can Chamber A Round And Send A Projectile Down Its Barrel At A High Rate Of Speed Into My Body - Causing Me Injury Or Death - To Be An Assault Weapon.

Assault Weapons

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.

My Feelings For You Shame Me Into Silence.

Love Is Self Deception. I Am A Living Creature. Hate Is Only Self Love. I Am A Double Feature.

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

To Get A Human Through A Life, Lives Of Broken Bones, Knock-me-over-with-a-feather Susceptibility To Myriad Viruses, And Whatever Else Might Befall Someone Will Cost Money.

Juan Williams Is A Very Sharp Guy.

The World’s A Better Place Since I Chose Music. I Like The Physical Aspect Of It, The Volume And The Intensity Of It. It’s Loud And Hard. I Like All That Because Inside Me I Feel Like Screaming.

The Most Interesting Place By Far Was Afghanistan. Just Because It Is A Place That I Cannot See Myself Living. The Hardness Of The People And The History Of The Country Is Just So Completely Intense.

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.

I Am Not Immune To The Lure Of A Signed Record, Flier Or Set List. The Fact That Your Music Heroes Potentially Had, In Their Own Hands, The Record You Now Have In Yours Is Kind Of Cool. When The Musician Has Departed, It Can Give The Thing A Unique Power.

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.

America's Foreign Policy Lacks The Backbone To Do The Right Thing In Afghanistan - Which Is Leave.

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.

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

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

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

Keep Your Blood Clean, Your Body Lean, And Your Mind Sharp.

Motivational Workout

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

People Will Remember That The Tea Party Was Co-opted And Funded By Billion-dollar Corporations, And That It Was Supported By Fox News And Other Outlets With The Same Vigor With Which They Attempt To Denigrate The Occupy Protesters.

If The Constitution Was A Movie, The Preamble Would Be The Trailer, The First Amendment The Establishing Shot, The 13th The Crowd Pleaser And The 14th The Ultimate Hero Scene.

Could It Be That Violence Is As Much A Part Of The American Identity As The Constitution, And A Vital Component To Its Economic Stability?

I Live My Life Through The Prism Of Capitalism And Physiological Limits And Eventualities. In All Of That, There Is No Spirituality Required. No God And Karma Is Needed For The Numbers. I Live My Life By The Numbers. Not Only Am I An American, I Am An Americanist.

I Am Basically Working 7 Days A Week. When I Am Not Eating, Sleeping, Or Working Out, I Am Working On One Of Projects Which I Am Just Damned Determined To Finish.

Life Is A Hurdle And You'll Never Clear It. Death Is The End Of The Ride And You Fear It.

One Of The Odd Enjoyments In Life Is To Be Alone In A Room Full Of People. To Have Them There As Unknowing Human Filler In Your Wide Shot.

I Can't Remember That I Ever Had Just A Minute Of Stage Fright.

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.

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.

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.

My Unconditional Sure Thing Is That I Don't Have One.

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.

I Have Watched Independent Record Stores Evaporate All Over America And Europe. That's Why I Go Into As Many As I Can And Buy Records Whenever Possible. If We Lose The Independent Record Store, We Lose Big. Every Time You Buy Your Records At One Of These Places, It's A Blow To The Empire.

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

Unsurprisingly, Nelson Mandela Had And Still Has Many Detractors.

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.

Falling In Love

Spring And Fall, Those Are Very Inspiring Times Of The Year For Me.

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.

Creating Problems Is Easy. We Do It All The Time. Finding Solutions, Ones That Last And Produce Good Results, Requires Guts And Care.

What Makes Me Uncomfortable About [barack] Obama Is What Makes Me Uncomfortable About Any Young Politician Who Has Not Yet Been Bloodied Inside The Beltway.

I Prefer To Work Out Alone. It Enables Me To Concentrate On The Lessons That The Iron Has For Me.

Lifting Weights

Quite Often People Will Get An Animal Which Is Probably Not A Good Idea For Them To Have. They Get It Out Of Enthusiasm, There Is A Genuine Interest, But Sometimes They're Not Exactly Prepared For What They're Getting Themselves Into.

There's No Retirement, There's Just A Few Years Of Non-work By The Fire With Someone Bringing You Some Tea And Relative Peace And Playing With The Grandchildren.

I Like How I Write Better Than How I Speak.

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.

A Man With An Excruciatingly Painful Condition Wrote Me And Told Me That His Doctor Said That The Only Cure For What He Has Is Death, And He Might Want To Consider Suicide. What Do You Say To Him? I Doubt The, "hey Let's Go Get Some Coffee And Talk" Thing Is Going To Be At All Helpful.

I Try To Get Myself Up And Moving As Early As Possible. Optimum Is To Be On The Treadmill While It Is Still Dark Outside.

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 Spend Several Days At A Time Without Enough Sleep. At First, Normal Activities Become Annoying. When You Are Too Tired To Eat, You Really Need Some Sleep. A Few Days Later, Things Become Strange. Loud Noises Become Louder And More Startling, Familiar Sounds Become Unfamiliar, And Life Reinvents Itself As A Surrealist Dream.

You Want To Meet A Bunch Of Really Friendly People? Go To A Slayer Concert. There'll Be Some Real Psychos There, But Most Of Those People Will Take Care Of Each Other.

If I Had To Perform In A Comedy Club I Would Bomb; I Would Be Trying Too Hard.

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!!!!’

Smart People Make Good Choices. They Dig Science And Say 'no' To The Invasion Of Sovereign Nations For The Pleasure Of Corporations.

For Me The Music Is Not So Much Anger As Much As It Is Of Passion. And I've Always Associated That Kind Of Intense Emotional Output With Music Just Because The Nature Of The Music That's Attracted Me As Far As Live.

I Am Always Interested In An Opportunity To Learn Something.

Opportunities To Learn

We Occupy The Planet With A Vengeance. We Seek To Dominate It.

The More You Own, The More It Owns You.

I'm Not Exactly Ambitious As Much As I Have A Very Good Realization Of What I Am And What I Am Capable Of.

It Is You Who Makes Me See What I Really Am.

I Don't Hate People - Not Remotely Other Than They Make You Crazy In Traffic, But As I Get Older I Kind Of See More And More Why People Do What They Do.

Pizza Makes Me Think That Anything Is Possible.

Anything Is Possible

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.

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.

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

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William Goldman

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