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We Spend Millions Of Dollars To Remove Pain From Our Lives. It's Why So Many People Get Hooked On Painkillers. The Body Becomes Addicted To Painlessness. That Tells You A Lot.

-Henry Rollins

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We Spend Millions Of

Henry Rollins

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We Spend Millions Of Dollars To Remove Pain From Our Lives. It's Why So Many People Get Hooked On Painkillers. The Body Becomes Addicted To Painlessness. That Tells You A Lot.

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You Are The Untold Story. You Are The Impassioned Truth Wanting To Scream Its Existence, To Be Forever Trapped By A Strong Hand Clapped Firmly Over The Mouth Of My Soul.

One Person's Disaster Is Another Person's Talking Point.

In My World There Would Be As Many Public Libraries As There Are Starbucks.

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'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 Don't Try To Be Angry To Prove Something. I Wouldn't Try To Intimidate You For Any Reason Unless You Were Trying To Intimidate Me, And Then I Would Show You That You Can't Do That To Me.

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.

In Blues Music, There's A Lot Of Borrowing, So It's Often Difficult To Identify The Originator Of A Song.

Misery, Depression, Elation All Mine, Refine Confinement All My Design.

Humans Are Pretty Amazing At Living Pretty Much Anywhere And So That Makes Me Optimistic That Perhaps Humanity Will Be Able To Survive Itself, Because The Reality Is That We Are Going To Have Problems With Water In This Century.

Everything You Do Makes My Body Scream With Loneliness.

Before Any American Points A Finger At President Putin And Calls Him Nasty Names, They Should Recognize That A Lot Of Americans Agree With Putin On His Stance Against Homosexual And Transgender People.

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 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.

If There Is One Set Of Laws, One Constitution For Every Citizen, Its Protections Hopefully Applied Equally To All, Then Why Do The Results Seem To Differ So Radically? What Do You Call That? Look Around - You're Living In It.

August In Sub-saharan Los Angeles Is One Of The Great And Awful Tests Of One's Endurance, Sanity And Stamina.

I Can't Imagine Being Sixty Years Of Age And Playing Music I Wrote When I Was In My Twenties. I Would Rather Sail The Sea Of Consequence To New Lands. Laps Around The Shallow End Of The Pool, Not For Me.

What Does New York Sound Like? For Me, The Charlie Parker At The Royal Roost Recordings On The Savoy Label Are The Total Embodiment Of The New York Music Experience.

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.

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.

Disappointment Always Arrives Before Hope And The Darkness Of Night Comes Before The Dawn. Don't Lose Hope Now Because Things Will Brighter With The New Day.

An Appreciation Of Animals Is Good For A Human, It Can Lead To A Better Understanding And Respect For All Living Things.

One Of The Most Insane Environments I Have Ever Spent Time In Is A Gun Range. There We Are, All In A Line, Armed To The Teeth, Firing Away.

I Believe That Capitalism, At Least How It's Used By Major Corporations, And Environmental Concerns Are In Opposition. To Be Ecologically Aware, Productivity Of Many Things Would Slow Down At Least For Awhile. Stockholders Don't Want To Hear About The Saving Of The Whales Or Some Stream In Kentucky. They Want A Return On Their Investment.

That's The Only Interaction I Have With People, Those Talking Shows. Most Of The People In My Phone Book Are Artists, Management, Producers, Engineers. I Don't Ever Call People With, "hi! How Are You?" I Say, "how Are You? Do You Have That 16/30 Ready? When Do You Want Me To Come Into The Studio?" That's What I Do.

When You Start Thinking As Far As What's A Good Photo, Unfortunately Everything Starts Looking Like A Good Photo.

The Blues Is Losing Someone You Love And Not Having Enough Money To Immerse Yourself In Drink.

Chris Christie Is New Jersey's Concern, Not America's.

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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.

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.

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

After I Left D.c. To Join Black Flag, I Felt I Was In A Band.

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.

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.

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

Life Is Weird, Great And Dangerous.

America Is Off-the-hook Gay. I Will Not Go All Ann Coulter On You And Say, 'our Gays Are Better Than Their Gays,' But As Far As Countries Go, We Are In-your-face Gay.

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

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

If I Hear, 'be Afraid Of Tehran,' I'm Like, 'i'd Better Go To Tehran.'

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 Am Too Far Gone To Be Rehabilitated.

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

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.

We Came To The End, We Found Nothing. Nothing!!! And We Cursed Because We Were Hoping For So Much Less.

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.

It Is Instilled In Thousands Of American Males From An Early Age That One Of Their Requirements Is To Be Able To Both Dish Out And Take A Lot Of Pain. They Are Taught The Rules Of This Road In Gyms, Rings, Backyards And Fields All Over America.

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 Don't Mean To Be Arrogant And I Really Appreciate My Fans But Talking About What I Am Doing Is Not Something I'm Good At. I Do What I Do And That's It. I Want To Get Back To My Work And Do More Of It Instead Of Talking About It.

Do It Or Don't. It's Amazing How Many Things In Life Are That Easy.

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.

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.

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.

If You Think About It, Every Single Species Is Endangered. Homo Sapiens At The Front Of The Line, Mosquitoes And Lawyers At The Back.

People Look At Things Differently. Imagine Going To A Village In Southern Sudan And Try To Explain To Someone There The Concept Of Life Insurance Or Retirement. Go To Vietnam And Say Retirement. 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. So You Move In With Your Son And His New Wife Takes Care Of You Because That's How Families Work There.

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My Feelings For You Shame Me Into Silence.

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Life Is Too Short

I Am Well Protected Too Locked Up Inside Myself To Get Free

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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.

You Can Say, "well, I Have A Question," And Someone Will Say, "oh, So You Hate America." And It Has Nothing To Do With The Discussion At All.

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Every Single Record I Have Is A Fossil.

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.

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Falling In Love

Most Of The Writers I Like Just Intimidate And Humble Me But In That There's A Good Deal Of Inspiration To Be Had As Well.

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

Black And White

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

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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.

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.

Most Poets Are Elitist Dregs More Concerned With Proving Their Skill With A Dictionary Than Communicating Ideas With Impact.

I Have Been Listening To The Stooges' Self-titled First Album For Well Over Half My Life, And It Remains One Of The Most Exciting And Essential Records I Have Ever Had The Good Fortune To Come Into Contact With.

Will Punk Rock Ever Die? Pal, If You Have To Ask It's Dead To You.

To Justify Being Listened To, I Try To Be As Well Informed As I Can. Hence, The Travel. Reading Is Good Too. Reading Gets You Part Way There, And I Do Read Pretty Voraciously For A Guy Who's Trying To Write So Much.

You Can Find Me In The Frozen Mood Section.

I Always Start Tours With A Great Deal Of Anticipation.

Questioning Anything And Everything, To Me, Is Punk Rock.

Anything And Everything

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Scott Asheton Was A Brilliant Drummer, A Natural Musician.

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 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 Young Person Growing Up In Washington, D.c., Summers Were Hot, Humid And Relentless. My Friends And I Grew More Restless And Adventurous With Every Passing Year.

In America, Quite Often, For People From A Certain Economic Position Two Choices Become Very Evident As To Their Adult Life. One Is Crime, One Is The Military. And It Is Quite Often That Some People Choose One Or The Other, Their Options Not Being As Many As Someone From A Higher Income.

You Can Still Function As A Living Ruin.

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.

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 Wonder If It Is Australia's Great Distance From More Populated Land Masses That Allows Its Inhabitants To Be Left To Their Own Devices, To Be Incredibly Creative And, At Times, To Be Wonderfully Weird.

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

I Just Travel The World With My Backpack And My Cameras And A Bunch Of Clif Bars.

My Mother, A Very Eclectic Listener, Had The First Doors Album And Gave It To Me When I Expressed Interest In The Band. It Was One Of The First Records I Ever Had. As The Years Passed, The Babysitters Who Used To Look After Me Would Bring Their Doors Albums To The Apartment, And That's How I Got To Hear Their Later Work.

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.

I Don't Mind Bees And Think We Are All The Better For Having Them Around. I Like The Taste Of Honey.

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

The Government Is A Functionary Of The Corporations - And There's Nothing New About That. You Can Find People In The 1930s Talking About The Army Basically Working For Wall Street In All Of These Countries [it Invades].

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 Have No Artistic Sensibilities. I Wish I Did. It Is Probably Really Cool. I Have Work Habits And Work Ethic. For Me, All The Things I Do Are Jobs.

I Once Asked Ozzy Osbourne, Truly One Of My Favorite People In The World, If He Was Cool With Singing Black Sabbath Songs Year After Year, Whether He Was Performing With Black Sabbath Or Out On A Solo Tour. He Said It Was Great.

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.

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.'

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

August Used To Be A Sad Month For Me. As The Days Went On, The Thought Of School Starting Weighed Heavily Upon My Young Frame. That, Coupled With The Oppressive Heat And Humidity Of My Native Washington, D.c., Only Seemed To Heighten The Misery.

Heat And Humidity

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.

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.

It's One Thing To Buy A Copy Of 'atlas Shrugged.' You Actually Have To Read It To Get Anything Out Of It.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

All I Have Is Me. Over-worked, Under-appreciated, Middle-aged, And Shriveled Up.

I Cling To My Memories Of Glorious Desperation.

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.

The More You Own, The More It Owns You.

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 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.

I Want A Soul Mate Who Can Sit Me Down, Shut Me Up, Tell Me Ten Things I Don’t Already Know, And Make Me Laugh. I Don’t Care What You Look Like, Just Turn Me On. And If You Can Do That, I Will Follow You On Bloody Stumps Through The Snow. I Will Nibble Your Mukluks With My Own Teeth. I Will Do Your Windows. I Will Care About Your Feelings. Just Have Something In There.

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.

I've Been On 'jay Leno,' And Everyone Likes Jay, But Being On That Show Is A Really Boring Afternoon. I Sincerely Like Jay, But I Wouldn't Want His Job, Because I'd Have To Interview Kathy Ireland, And There's Nothing There I'd Want To Know.

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

We Spend Millions Of Dollars To Remove Pain From Our Lives. It's Why So Many People Get Hooked On Painkillers. The Body Becomes Addicted To Painlessness. That Tells You A Lot.

Have You Ever Heard The Expression 'one Hot Mess?' I Think The Term Was Custom-made For The Mayor Of Toronto, Rob Ford.

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

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.

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

Bono Actually Gets A Lot Of Substantial Work Done. The Guy Really Does Put A Lot Of Things Together And, While I'm Not A Fan Of His Music, I Greatly Applaud His Humanitarian Efforts.

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 Lay Off A Lot Modern Fiction And Only Rely On Living Writers For Non-fiction Work.

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.

So, One Way Or Another, I Found Myself In A Few Movies. I Take It Seriously When I'm On The Set, But I Don't Take Myself Seriously As An Actor.

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.

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.

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.

Best Not To Mix The Past With The Present. The Present Paints The Past With Gold. The Past Paints The Present With Lead.

If You Listen To 'the Revolution Will Not Be Televised,' By Gil Scott-heron, That Album Is Dripping With Rage.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Sleep Is For Squares.

I Don't Know If Music Has Ever Achieved Anything Past Appealing To The People That It Appeals To. If A Song Could Stop A War, Then Bob Marley And Bob Dylan Songs Would Have Stopped One Or Two.

No One Should Die When They're 50.

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.

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