As long as I tell the truth I feel that nobody can touch me.
Being an artist is dragging your innermost feelings out, giving a piece of yourself, no matter in which art form, in which medium.
Between the tours and the album, we have sent them about 110 to 120 thousand dollars, which is not so bad if you're on death row waiting for something to happen. There have been a lot of other bands that have helped, too.
Don't do anything by half. If you love someone, love them with all your soul. When you go to work, work your ass off. When you hate someone, hate them until it hurts.
Giving a good performance, giving it all is what it's all about. I love to perform.
Hope is the last thing a person does before they are defeated.
How do you want to change things for the better? By hugging Nazis? By trying to argue with them? It doesn't work this way.
I am an optimist because I want to change things for the better and I know that blood has to be spilled and disharmony and cruelty are necessary to do that.
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 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 can only write about personal stuff, about my point of view.
I can't really explain it, but I feel as long as I tell them my dark sides there is nothing they can dig up.
I can't remember that I ever had just a minute of stage fright.
I don't believe in fate or destiny. I believe in various degrees of hatred, paranoia, and abandonment. However much of that gets heaped upon you doesn't matter - it's only a matter of how much you can take and what it does to you.
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.
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.
I don't want to waste my time. For me, it's important to get stuff done.
I forged myself out of a vacuum. I crawl along the highway on hacked off stumps year after year. Some wonder how and why. I never do.
I get inspired by things that happened to me, thoughts I have in my mind.
I just get things done instead of talking about getting them done. I don't go out and party. I don't smoke, drink or do drugs and I'm not married, that leaves a lot of time for my work.
I love to go on stage and sing.
I mean I appreciate fan mail and that the people like what I am doing but I can't answer it. If I would answer 25 letters a day I would be just a guy answering mail and not an artist anymore.
I need to do things on my own, need to be left alone.
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 want to change things for the better, just like everybody else.
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.
I'm kind of doing what I though the job was and I'm having fun. One experience takes you to another.
I'm most in my element on tour, with a gig that day, like today. I'm on the road where I am supposed to be. I will be where I'm supposed to be at nighttime, on stage, in front of people, doing my thing.
I'm working a lot. I'm editing the books I publish (I write and publish my own books). Then I'm looking after everything concerning the band.
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.
In the summer of '84, you just couldn't escape the Born in the USA record.
It is just that I don't want a wife and I don't want kids.
It's sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew.
Keep your blood clean, your body lean, and your mind sharp.
Life will not break your heart. It'll crush it.
Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better.
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Nothing brings people together more, then mutual hatred.
Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on.
So I work really hard at keeping in good physical shape so I can go up there and really put it on, you know.
So I'm more at home with my backpack, sleeping in a hotel room or on a bus or on an airplane, than I am necessarily on a bed. It's weird being here. It feels like I'm standing next to my real life.
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.
Some artists can write about books they read or movies they saw, but that's not for me. I need to experience something, feel strongly about something.
Sometimes the truth hurts. And sometimes it feels real good.
The blues is losing someone you love and not having enough money to immerse yourself in drink.
The making of the album was pretty intense. Having to deal with so many managers and agents; some of their attitudes. The musicians were all cool, but getting some of their phone numbers was just unbelievable.
The only difference between me and others is that they think they can change something with cute little poems, nice cards or embracing trees and being nice to little lapdogs.
There's no such thing as an ex-junkie.
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.
To hate is to show you still care, who needs that, focus on what's really important.
Well, we run my ship differently. Any offer that comes in, I yay or nay it, no matter how insane it is. Like, if someone asks me if I'm interested in doing a porn film, the answer to that is going to be no, but it comes to me anyway. I'm responsible for making the call.
What I don't want to do is go out there and not be able to mean it, you know?
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.
Yes, I guess you could say I am a loner, but I feel more lonely in a crowed room with boring people than I feel on my own.
You know I basically do the show and go right to bed pretty much. I read, do some writing, and then I hit the sack, just so the next night I'm in there giving it all again.
You can get away with a lot of shit if it looks like it's all you know how to do.
Whenever I get dumped (by a girlfriend), I nail the door shut so that no one can come inside, get a towel and clip it around my neck so it's like a Superman cape, take off my shoes so I can slide across the room, and...get a fake mic, like a celery stick or a pen, and I play any record that features the vocalist Ronnie James Dio. And you can just pretend you're Dio, because on every album he does, he has minimum one, usually three, *EVIL WOMAN LOOK OUT!*- songs.
The ones who don't do anything are always the ones who try to pull you down.
When you start to doubt yourself the real world will eat you alive.
I don't want to pass through life like a smooth plane ride.
If you hate your parents, the man, or the establishment, don't show them up by getting wasted and wrapping your car around a tree. If you really want to rebel against your parents: outearn them, outlive them, and know more than they do.
Want a good body? Work at it. Want to be a success? Work at it. Want to be truly exceptional? Be a touch insane... You need a little bit of insanity to do great things.
Nothing brings people together more than a mutual hatred.
Founded the record labels InfiniteZero, 213CD, and more recently, the "District Line" label, which will focus on rare and unreleased music from Washington DC area artists.
Founder of 2.13.61, a record label and publishing company. The digits of the company's name are Henry's date of birth (February 13, 1961).
Sang in early hardcore punk band Black Flag.
Started working out when a friend of his was jumped and beaten.
In December of 1991, in their shared house in Venice, California, his best friend Joe Cole (son of actor Dennis Cole) was shot and killed during a robbery attempt. The crime remains unsolved and was featured on "Unsolved Mysteries" (1987).
Lives off Hollywood Blvd in the Hollywood foothills, California.
Among the musical artists he admires least: Depeche Mode, Bruce Springsteen and U2 (which he says has the worst rhythm section he's ever heard).
Has a multi-tiered career: sings, acts, writes books and poetry, does spoken word performances, runs his own record label and book publishing company, and now also TV film critic, and radio DJ.
Narrated the TLC special "The Human Journey" in 2000, which focused on modern man's descent from an East African population of less than 1,000 people and eventual global expansion within the last 50,000 years.
Despises the music of Nine Inch Nails and Moby (and most electronics-based musical artists in general).
Won a Grammy in 1994 for Best Spoken Word Album for "Get in the Van: On the Road with Black Flag", the same year he was nominated for Best Heavy Metal Performance for "Liar"
Adopted the stage surname of Rollins after Sonny Rollins, the jazz saxophonist.
Collaborated with William Shatner on a song on Shatner's album "Has Been". The song was entitled "I Can't Get Behind That".
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