"I see violence in myself; I've done some pretty violent things in my lifetime and I've been around some pretty severe violence all the way up to homicide."
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Quote collection
Henry Rollins quotes (page 45 of 46)
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"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."
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"I write what I can. I think being able to write like Michael Connelly and have a character that goes from novel to novel, or to dramatize history like Vidal or Ellroy, or have an explosively inventive mind like Bulgakov, would be an incredible thing. I don't have that. I only have what I have."
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"I'm not trying to say I'm a big tough guy... I'm a typical American-waist deep in this violent culture."
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"I'm not trying to amass people in the streets. I just want them to be more aware."
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"Quite often governments are one way and the people are another."
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"I lack the skill to hold a story line for the length required for a novel or even a short story. I have never had an idea that could withstand a hundred thousand words, or even ten thousand words of rubber meeting the road."
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"I'm not like paparazzi. I never force myself on anyone. I always ask, and some places offer money. And so I try and get these photos to give you, the viewer, a real look at what I was seeing."
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"I was raised in Washington, DC, very violent place. I grew up with violence. My introduction to music was violent. The years I've spent on tours, some of that was extremely violent."
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"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."
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"I'm usually busy - if you call me at the house, I get about four phone calls there a year - I'm usually running around the house with a pen in my mouth holding onto something, folding it, or doing something to it, and it's always a bad time."
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"Entertainment's hard on the ego. I see why actors are so psycho now. Because there's so much 'we don't want you' going on in acting. Even big people get rejected but the smaller people - they really get rejected. Trust me - I know."
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"The visceral nature of hard rock music, the fact that you can have this sledge hammering sound - and that you can hook a lyric up and a feeling up to something and make the lyric jump into this machine that crushes. That has always been really attractive to me, that kind of power."
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"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."
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"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."
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"I really like older writers, perhaps because they take me out of my element. I don't have a great deal of interest in reading a fictionalized present as it's pretty insane as it is."
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"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."
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"With writing, there are multiple drafts. On stage, there is one take. I do a lot of preparation for shows, so, for the most part, what you hear me say is pretty much what I wanted to get at."
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"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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"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."
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