Henry Rollins Quotes

I save the rage for the stage.

I have a lot of aggression in me that needs to come out in a not-very-precise or articulate way.

I don't think I threw myself into music because I had the best intentions; it was because I was really angry.

I know sometimes my Twitter feed is intense, but I take it as a friendly void to scream into. I don't have another way to be.

I started to use music almost like a therapist, where it's like, everything that I don't really dare to say or speak about, I can sing about.

I turned to music originally because of my past and needing a release or an outlet to get out anger or frustration or hurt.

I'm generally quite an angry person, and I like to channel my anger toward something creative.

As a stand up, and often in acting, there is no place for the most intense feelings. Rage, genuine sorrow, naked hope... These things don't fit on a comedy stage and if you act you'll get to express them once in a while. Music is a place for the intensely personal.

'Downward Spiral' felt like I had an unending bottomless pit of rage and self-loathing inside me and I had to somehow challenge something or I'd explode. I thought I could get through by putting everything into my music, standing in front of an audience and screaming emotions at them from my guts.

Music is a very powerful thing. If I'm angry, I can write a song about it, and it seems to make everything okay.

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.

Singing is a way of releasing an emotion that you sometimes can't portray when you're acting. And music moves your soul, so music is the source of the most intense emotions you can feel. When you hear a song and you're acting it's incredible. But when you're singing a song and you're acting it's even more incredible.

When something really hits me, it makes me want to either jump off something really high or lie down and be buried. I want people to get hit and caught by my music.

I'll keep venting my anger through my films.

A lot of my comedy is to do with being angry, then finding a way to channel that.

All these feelings need to be felt. We need to stomp and storm; to sob and cry; to perspire and tremble.

When I feel something very intensely or deeply or personally, I can go to extremes of self-expression or self-analysis by writing a poem - more than I can just talking to somebody or writing prose.

I only wrote one song in jail. But I'm writing new album - you're going to feel the entire 11 months of what I went through on this album. I'm venting my anger.

Heartbreak was the impetus to me writing poems and music in the first place. Over the years, I had my heart broken so badly that if I didn't find a way to get all the pain out, I was going to lose my mind. I was crazy! Like, wanting to slash tires and smash car windows. Crazy! I was so hurt that I had to write.

The first time I ever screamed at someone was in a scene, and I'd never screamed at someone in my life.

You can punch a wall or write a song. Just as painful either way, but you have something to show for it at the end of the day with a song.

I see writing and acting as different parts of the same continuum. Writing is better for intense emotion. If you're very angry about something, you shouldn't present it as strongly when you're acting. But if you're really angry and writing about it, that's the best way to get it out and across.

It's called Sisters of the Winter Madrigal. It was interesting for me to see it done after so many years; because I wrote it and I didn't realize what a rage I was in.

Singing and dancing are the greatest emotional outlets you can have.

Music was my one way to vent.