Henry Rollins

The Ruts were a great punk rock band from England whose songs were as excellent as their time together was short.

I don't hate the government. I don't think the Second Amendment is being infringed upon.

Guns are part of the American identity.

I am neither pro- nor anti-gun. I am gun-conscious.

Those who seek to profit by division don't stand a chance.

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.

I try to get myself up and moving as early as possible. Optimum is to be on the treadmill while it is still dark outside.

More guns equaling more safety is a slippery slope, and what makes it so is human blood.

Kids need parents who love and support them unconditionally, full stop.

Consumerism is at once the engine of America and simultaneously one of the most revealing indicators of our collective shallowness.

Too bad that Paul Ryan confessed to being a fan of Rage Against The Machine. By doing so, he not only begged for a bucketing by many of their fans but actually got one from the band's guitar player, Tom Morello.

August in sub-Saharan Los Angeles is one of the great and awful tests of one's endurance, sanity and stamina.

As a young person growing up in Washington, D.C., summers were hot, humid and relentless. My friends and I grew more restless and adventurous with every passing year.

Michele Bachmann is always a great person to go to for an opinion about anything. She has a very active and interesting mind.

Jazz music is as American as it gets, and so is the U.S. Postal Service. A Miles Davis stamp is a perfect marriage of two great American institutions.

Death metal uses a lot of white face paint and black hair dye to make its point. I quite enjoy this genre for its intensity, extremism and underlying irony: You have to be alive to play it and listen to it.

My first introduction to African music was by my mother, who bought the 'Pata Pata' album by the great Miriam Makeba when it came out. Now that is an album. What a voice.

I once asked Ozzy Osbourne, truly one of my favorite people in the world, if he was cool with singing Black Sabbath songs year after year, whether he was performing with Black Sabbath or out on a solo tour. He said it was great.

There is no place in the world like Australia. Not even its beautiful neighbor New Zealand.

I think that humans have a huge capacity to carry pain and sadness. There are things that haunt us our entire lives; we are unable to let them go. The good times seem almost effervescent and dreamlike in comparison with the times that didn't go so well.

I think marriage is a boring and fault-ridden contractual obligation.

In blues music, there's a lot of borrowing, so it's often difficult to identify the originator of a song.

We Americans are hard on almost everything. We are hard on our vehicles, our marriages and our heroes. Mostly, however, we are hard on ourselves.

If it's a man's world, as they say, then men, your world is a poorly run carnage fest.

Never once have I thought that Social Security would be something that would ever be available to me.

Shirley Sherrod seems like a good and dedicated person.

If the Constitution was a movie, the Preamble would be the trailer, the First Amendment the establishing shot, the 13th the crowd pleaser and the 14th the ultimate hero scene.

Ramones music has a Pavlovian effect on me - the song starts, and the world blurs around the sound.

A country that has been through as much as Vietnam has to have some crazy music somewhere.

Trying to write music, be in a band and keep it all happening is one of the hardest, morale-destroying, heartbreaking things you will ever try to do - and that's when it's going well.

Being unique is never easy, and often, by the time culture catches up with you, there are only a few people who notice.

The public library system of the United States is worth preserving.

Seven-11 is the pulse-beat of America. I think that Bruce Springsteen should do a song about a 7-11 in Asbury Park, New Jersey, but write it in such a way that American's youth can identify and slurp along with the Boss. Hail the Boss! Hail 7-11!

Sarah Palin embarrasses herself almost immediately upon opening her mouth to speak or upon moving her fingers to send messages to her dull flock.

My laptop seems to know where I am, even if I don't. My cellphone asks me if I want directions to anywhere from the spot I am standing in. I buy a record online and Amazon.com sends me letters, telling me that people who bought what I bought also bought these other records.

Every single record I have is a fossil.

I believe that contentment or any sustained period of joy that doesn't inspire thought that leads to action almost immediately is useless.

I'm mellower now, I'm over 50. But I don't think I'm too mellow. I'm still angry at a lot of things.

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.

I have lived in public as a somewhat recognizable person since I was a teenager. Emails I answer end up posted on sites; pictures of me and someone I just met, taken by a cellphone, literally number in the thousands and are easily accessed.

America sold VX nerve gas and anthrax to Iraq for years, even after the Halabja gas attack, which killed thousands of Kurds.

I thought I was gonna be in the minimum-wage working world all my life.

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 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.

For many, an album is no longer a considerable feat of an artist but just sounds to be half-listened to while one is halfheartedly engaged in something else.

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

Music keeps you young. Having music in your life keeps you open to things.

Creating problems is easy. We do it all the time. Finding solutions, ones that last and produce good results, requires guts and care.

'Fox News' will one day come to an end. Led Zeppelin will not. It's as simple as that.

If there is one set of laws, one Constitution for every citizen, its protections hopefully applied equally to all, then why do the results seem to differ so radically? What do you call that? Look around - you're living in it.