Henry Rollins Quotes

Writing for me is definitely a form of ventilation - a way for me to cope and deal with emotions. I think it is for any writer.

I just feel very lucky to be able to write fiction because I think, otherwise, I would have had to spend a fortune on a psychiatrist - and I still wouldn't get 1/100th of what I get writing fiction.

One of the reasons that I think I do love to write is because I did have a difficult childhood and not so great teenage years. It always helped me escape from my problems.

I have never been depressed or thrown a plate, which I attribute to the cathartic effects of writing books about people whose lives are more grueling than mine.

I really enjoy the therapeutic value of writing songs.

When I have worries, fears or a love affair, I have the luck of being able to transform it into a poem.

It is very true to say that work done by writers is quite often an attempt to give solid expression to that which is bothering them... They feel they have got it right if they express the stress.

It can be really powerful to write something when you're sad.

My writing always came out of a very personal place, out of an attempt to stay sane.

I always wrote poetry as a teenager and it was always so dark, but it made me feel good to get it out.

I write to keep from going mad from the contradictions I find among mankind - and to work some of those contradictions out for myself.

I tend to write about my anxieties - it's what I'm afraid will happen. And I write a story working it out.

If I couldn't get published tomorrow I'd still be writing. It's something to do with feeling so overwhelmed by this experience of life that you have to tell someone about it, and in a way that reorders the experience to make it manageable.

That place that no one knows about - horrifying things we keep secret. A lot of that is released through acting.

I have a tendency to face my bad fantasies in my books.

I start with something that makes me angry or confused, and then I write about it. It's a form of self-help.

Writing is my way of expressing - and thereby eliminating - all the various ways we can be wrong-headed.

Writing has never been like therapy for me, but blogging comes a little closer - I can smack-talk freely and frequently, and this is good for me.

One of the things that has always motivated me to write is the desire to get it out and look at it in an objective way, so that it doesn't cause me any serious pain by staying inside.

One sheds one's sicknesses in books - repeats and presents again one's emotions, to be master of them.

Writing is my therapy. My feelings build up inside of me and then I sit down and write a song.

I guess I usually write when I'm in a really intense headspace, because it's my form of self-therapy.

Writing is a way of processing our lives. And it can be a way of healing.

If I don't write to empty my mind, I go mad.

I paint and sculpt to get a grip on reality... to protect myself.