Henry Rollins

"There is not one single police officer in America that I am not afraid of and not one that I would trust to tell the truth or obey the laws they are sworn to uphold. I do not believe they protect me in any way."

"We are misery-making machines! Homo sapiens has perfected the art of causing suffering. Pain is humankind's collective GDP."

"Change is hard, but change is good."

"Enough Americans saw fit to give president Obama a second term. I don't think there will be many people keeping their Romney/Ryan bumper stickers on their cars."

"I think a lot of Americans have never been all that hungry. They've never had war on their shore, and they've never suffered the way other cultures have suffered. I'm not saying we should go suffer. Not at all. I'm saying we should be more aware of how other cultures exist."

"Early spring is the time for vigorous change, a preparation for the heat-driven oppression that is to come."

"With any advent in technology, any technological innovation, there is the good and the bad."

"'SMiLE' is perhaps the Beach Boys' most legendary album. It was recorded in 1966 and 1967 but only saw a formal release in 2011. That's a long time to wait for what was said to be Brian Wilson's masterpiece."

"America was cool with Saddam Hussein when he was killing Iranians."

"As long as I tell the truth I feel that nobody can touch me."

"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."

"Everyone who knows me knows that I'm a hopeless romantic who listens to love ballads and doo-wop songs all the time."

"For many years, I tried to make New Year's resolutions. I made lists and shot for great heights: I would show altruism and exert moral strength, patience and all those other great attributes."

"I am a veteran of the War on Christmas. I am just emerging from a battlefield strewn with dead trees and torn shreds of brightly colored wrapping paper."

"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."

"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."

"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 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."

"I have not the smarts or patience for political office."

"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."

"I think politicians get hamstrung by the nature of politics when the private sector can really do great things."

"I wonder what it's like to be from a state that is spread across a few islands way out in the Pacific Ocean, only added to the United States in 1959. Not only that but to be the birthplace of America's first black president? Pretty cool, I bet."

"If the death of Osama Bin Laden brings any peace to those who lost loved ones on that awful day in September 2001, that is a great thing. It is more likely, however, just a painful reminder of what was lost."

"Imagine a 15-year-old kid saying, 'I have two moms - it's cool.' I don't fear that at all."

"In Israel, there's a lot to learn from anyone, because to live there you've got to deal with the truth. Things happen real fast. Your day goes from cool to catastrophic in one second. Israelis know that the cafe you're in could blow up, or the shopping mall, and they rock that."

"In my bright, utopian future world, they will hand out college educations like cups of water at the end of the L.A. Marathon."

"It is amazing to hear grown-up people rationalize homophobia and discrimination. The lengths they go to trying to prove their points take reason to its breaking point."

"It's sad when someone you know becomes someone you knew."

"Live music is the cure for what ails ya."

"Loneliness adds beauty to life. It puts a special burn on sunsets and makes night air smell better."

"Marriage equality is a term so ridiculous on its face that when you hear it mentioned, you would think you were in Riyadh. Years from now, perhaps we can lose the equality part, the same-sex part and call it what it is - marriage."

"Mr. Christ, I read you as an infinitely patient entity who, as they say, often works in mysterious ways, a rebel unafraid to take the tougher, less traveled paths. Seems to me you're playing the long game. Is that why more states are coming out in favor of marriage equality? Is that why the Affordable Care Act is now with us?"

"My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud."

"Of course same sex marriage is constitutional! The right to be yourself, to pursue life, liberty, and property, is protected several ways over several amendments. John Boehner should know this."

"One person's roar is another's whine, just as one person's music is another's unendurable noise."

"Scar tissue is stronger than regular tissue. Realize the strength, move on."

"Smart people make good choices. They dig science and say 'no' to the invasion of sovereign nations for the pleasure of corporations."

"The ecstatic insanity of romantic pursuit can be so enhanced by music that entire romantic conquests, victories and ruinous, crushing defeats can be tied to songs to such a degree that it's almost unbearable to listen to them again, as they bring back the memories so vividly."

"To anger female voters in America is to tread on the tiger's tail. Women turn out in huge numbers, and they are well aware of how their bodies work and what they need."

"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."

"War is very sad and small life is pathetically fragile at times."

"We all learn lessons in life. Some stick, some don't. I have always learned more from rejection and failure than from acceptance and success."

"Weakness is what brings ignorance, cheapness, racism, homophobia, desperation, cruelty, brutality, all these things that will keep a society chained to the ground, one foot nailed to the floor."

"When a young non-white male is stopped and searched at the whim of a police officer, his idea of personal space, privacy and self esteem are shattered, to say nothing of his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment protections. The damage goes deep quickly and stays. Stop & frisk, as well as a tactic, is also an incitement."

"When I'm off the road, and I can really control my diet down to the calorie, I juice seven days a week. Every afternoon, whatever I have at hand, beets, carrots, ginger, whatever. I juice, literally, every single day. And on the road, I try to find fresh juice wherever I can."

"With age, life becomes complex and difficult, often fraught with risk on several levels, from the practical to the fiscal."

"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."