Henry Rollins

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

“More and more, journalism seems to have hopped out of Truth's pocket and crept into another.”

“I used to love youI still doSo SelfishI love the old youThe you that didnt shoot drugs...The you that didnt get beat on by menYou laugh in my face and call me a foolBut its trueI still love youSometimes,I can see the old youWhen your eyes flashWhen you almost look alive”

“I have to do things for myself, and if those standards are set high, then it's up to me to pass or fail.”

“I come from a town of great musicians: Washington, D.C. It's no joke, that history.”

“Everything you do makes my body scream with loneliness. When I see you, the room swallows me. I find myself at the bottom of the pool.”

“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.”

“Maybe I'm just a psycho, and the stage is a better place to go than either the loony bin or somewhere else.”

“I need to do things on my own, need to be left alone.”

“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.”

“You need a little bit of insanity to do great things.”

“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.”

“If American forces leave Afghanistan, the Taliban is going to do what to America? Don't say you're worried about what they will do to the Afghan people. If that was America's concern, America's operational presence there would be much different.”

“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.”

“In the summer of '84, you just couldn't escape the Born in the USA record.”

“It's sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew.”

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

“Edward Snowden, who worked for Booz Allen Hamilton, professes to have had access to whatever he wanted to know about anyone's anything. If he's telling the truth, why does he have such permeability without any government oversight? Is that OK with you?”

“I tend to gravitate to the darkest or most obscure part of any venue in an effort to have my own space to experience the music on my own, free from unwanted conversations and other distractions.”

“To me, the real 'state of the union' is found in how Americans react to current events.”