Jhc123 > Jhc123's Quotes

“For some there is no music
No lights
No fire
No untamed madness that breathes life
There is work
Anguish
Frustration
Rage
Despair
A dullness that rings like wooden thunder”
― Henry Rollins

“You have to get away from them. You have to get as far away as you can otherwise they'll kill you with their lives. They don't know what they do. They are careless with themselves and they take too much for granted. They make their shortcomings your problem. The only way to keep your head above it and heal your wounds is to crawl away.”
― Henry Rollins, Black Coffee Blues

“Maybe some things are better left broken and scattered
Veiled in darkness, secret bitterness and self-doubt
I should have known better
Than to start something that I couldn't finish
That I couldn't care about
That I couldn't remember starting in the first place
I don't want to know you
You went years without me
You might as well keep going.”
― Henry Rollins

“I do my best to limit the amount of compromise in my life so I have more time to do what I want. Not hanging out with many people really helps. I am not a people person and I spend a great deal of time on my own and in this environment, I get a lot done.”
― Henry Rollins

“So where are they now? Your friends, I mean? You're always telling me about your friends and how you would do anything for them because they are your friends and how in return, they would die for you. I didn't believe it then and I'm not believing it now. All of your friends have gone. The good people, YOUR people, that's what you would call them. It was hard to keep from laughing in your face when you talked like that. I always wondered if that's what you thought I was to you, if I was one of YOUR people. You're so full of shit and now it's even too deep for you to deal with. The truth is that you don't have any friends, not now, not ever. You think you're with someone and then you find that you're just alone in a room with a stranger. You spent so much time running away from yourself, fulfilling imaginary duties to your friends, that you don't even know who you are. When the shit comes down, you can't even count on yourself. Isn't that a shame. Get ready for one of the longest nights ever.”
― Henry Rollins, Eye Scream

“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.”
― Henry Rollins, The Portable Henry Rollins

“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.”
― Henry Rollins

“I am talking about ultimate deceit. I am talking about unparalleled treachery. Bottomless lies. Depths that are seen that are previously unimaginable. Darkness and shattering despair that could break bones. Paranoia and horror that could stop the heart cold. All inflicted on one's self by one's self. The soul turns schizophrenic and goes hopelessly insane.”
― Henry Rollins, Pissing in the Gene Pool

“I'm so burned out, the only person I can stand is myself.
I'm the only one I would put through this.
Wheels and wings,
The ride is everything.
I'm all I've got.
I'm all I can take.
Another day has destroyed a part of me.
So far so good.”
― Henry Rollins, See a Grown Man Cry, Now Watch Him Die

“ 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.”
― Henry Rollins, Solipsist

“I am well protected
Too locked up
Inside myself
To get free”
― Henry Rollins

“I would like to be able to say that she broke my heart but I know better. I broke my own heart. I can't say that she did it and get behind that statement in any real way. I know too much. The only one I can blame for my loneliness is myself. Even if I did think that she did it to me I wouldn't feel any better. Tonight I was watching a movie and this actor in the film looked like her when she had a profile shot. She did not break my heart I did. I don't know why I would do something this painful to myself. I wish I would stop it's been months now and I'm still hurting myself nightly. I can avoid it for awhile and then it comes back.”
― Henry Rollins, Eye Scream

“Somewhere, someone isn’t impressed by your looks. Not all men jump through the hoops of your fire. You’re unbelievably boring to more people than you’ll ever know.”
― Henry Rollins, Solipsist

“I want you bad like a natural disaster. You are all I see. You are the only one I want to know.”
― Henry Rollins, Solipsist

“Sometimes it's not catastrophic. Sometimes you only come to the bottom of your coffee cup. Sometimes you have a good day. No one wants to know. No one wants to tell you about theirs either. You might somehow take it. Turn it against them. See the flaw. You always tell them the whole thing sucks. It keeps you alive. They figure if you're out there having a rotten time, everything's fine and you're doing your part. No one will ever try to take your bad times away from you but they'll come swarming for your happiness.”
― Henry Rollins, Roomanitarian

“You can get away with a lot of shit if it looks like it`s all you know how to do.”
― henry rollins

“I just want to be able to stand up straight for a little while before I get cut down.”
― Henry Rollins, Solipsist

“You can still function as a living ruin.”
― Henry Rollins, Solipsist

“I don’t want people to matter to me too much. Sometimes it hurts too much to think about them. Ones you love who don’t love you, ones who are dead or hate you, ones who you think about but never get to be with. I like people but when I get too close, it fucks me up and I can’t get things done.”
― Henry Rollins

“Here in this moment we are beautiful, nocturnal creatures and our thoughts and words are jewels guarded by the moon.”
― Henry Rollins, Solipsist

“I am cool with people. I am not the one at the top of the water tower with the rifle at all. I am cool when they are cool. I am not a people person. I live alone and don't visit much with people. I do answer all the mail and meet anyone after the show though. I have no problem with this. These people took the time out to check me out, there's no way I am blowing that off or in any way disrespecting that. The Black Flag years were turbulent and it took a lot of work to be cool with people after that. I have never been one to go to clubs or events unless I am performing or on business. It's just not me.”
― Henry Rollins

“A man came up to me the other day and said he hadn't had a bite in weeks. So you know what I did? I walked by him like he didn't even exist.”
― Henry Rollins, Eye Scream

“She liked me because she said that we both hated everything and knew that friendship was an act of desperation. She said that for a man I was alright. She said that people were half-way and if it was up to her a lot of people would get killed and a lot of men would be walking around without their balls. She said that they should go on sale for women to hang off their rearview mirrors.”
― Henry Rollins, Black Coffee Blues

“He had one of those typical piece of shit days. The grind always. At least this time he had the guys to stay away from the bar and not drive home to the wife and kid drunk. He got home and immediately everything pissed him off. Sometimes the way his wife looked at him made him want to kill himself. The way she all of a sudden appeared like a total stranger. The vacancy in her eyes, it was bad. He took his son's favourite plastic mug, the one with the picture of Magic Johnson, and threw it into the trash. He felt better but not much.”
― Henry Rollins, Eye Scream

“I've said it before and I say it again: "A man's got to do what a brainless idiot's got to do.”
― Henry Rollins, Get in the Van: On the Road With Black Flag

“I hope I don't dream tonight. Sometimes you can get so far in yourself that you don't know who you are.”
― Henry Rollins, Black Coffee Blues

“If you have an idea of what you want to do in your future, you must go at it with almost monastic obsession, be it music, the ballet or just a basic degree. You have to go at it single-mindedly and let nothing get in your way”
― Henry Rollins

“I think to myself:
I don't want to survive this one
I want to burn up in the wreckage”
― Henry Rollins, The Portable Henry Rollins

“She lit my soul and inhaled deeply
Flicking my ashes occasionally.”
― Henry Rollins, The Portable Henry Rollins

“Living things don't all require
light in the same degree. Some of us
make our own light: a silver leaf
like a path no one can use, a shallow
lake of silver in the darkness under the great maples.

But you know this already.
You and the others who think
you live for truth and, by extension, love
all that is cold.”
― Louise Glück, Poems, 1962-2012