“What I felt for you was a combination of respect and affection. There was a closeness I felt through intimate interaction. The affection part is all over with. All that remains is the respect. If I put my arms around you and told you that I missed you, I would be lying. You're alright with me and I wish you well. But you're not me and that makes you one of them and you can only get so close.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“So where are they now? Your friends, I mean? You're always telling me about your friends and how you would do anything for them because they are your friends and how in return, they would die for you. I didn't believe it then and I'm not believing it now. All of your friends have gone. The good people, YOUR people, that's what you would call them. It was hard to keep from laughing in your face when you talked like that. I always wondered if that's what you thought I was to you, if I was one of YOUR people. You're so full of shit and now it's even too deep for you to deal with. The truth is that you don't have any friends, not now, not ever. You think you're with someone and then you find that you're just alone in a room with a stranger. You spent so much time running away from yourself, fulfilling imaginary duties to your friends, that you don't even know who you are. When the shit comes down, you can't even count on yourself. Isn't that a shame. Get ready for one of the longest nights ever.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“My love is a thousand French poets puking black blood on your Cure CD collection.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“I would like to be able to say that she broke my heart but I know better. I broke my own heart. I can't say that she did it and get behind that statement in any real way. I know too much. The only one I can blame for my loneliness is myself. Even if I did think that she did it to me I wouldn't feel any better. Tonight I was watching a movie and this actor in the film looked like her when she had a profile shot. She did not break my heart I did. I don't know why I would do something this painful to myself. I wish I would stop it's been months now and I'm still hurting myself nightly. I can avoid it for awhile and then it comes back.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“Anyone who wants to help me doesn't. Anyone who wants to kill me might. Anyone who wants to love me better not.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“My dick is a macho shithead but the rest of me is a sensitive, caring and gentle guy.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“Keep walking. Hot night right now, right here. All you have is what you are. All you want is much too much. All you get is so much less. All you feel is nothing. All you see is darkness. All you know is senseless and all you can do about it is ride.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“You can't right the wrongs because you'll never understand the cause and you'll be too busy dodging the effect.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“Look. I see it. You can go to all the movies and watch all the television you want. I am the end of all time. I'm not hooked up to the machine. I don't care about being labelled a misogynist, misanthropic hate addict. I don't give a fuck if some human organism calls me politically incorrect. I like the idea of people getting killed in parking lots. I stab every person who passes me. In my mind, I stab them in the face with a fucking knife. If I thought I could get away with it, I would skin you alive. I only fear prison if I get caught killing one of you humans. I hate you all. I don't know anyone. I am the enemy of humans. I am that which spits in the face of humanity.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“There should be more natural disasters. I like those because you can't blame anyone. You can't put an earthquake on trial. You can't send a flood to the chair. Look at the fucking zoo I live in. All these bent up little players running around through the ruins saying, "Isn't this groovy and decadent? Cool!" Looking like Death and thinking they're something. I would like to help. I really would. I wonder if the guy at the gun store would give me a discount on the bullets I'll need if I told him what I was up to.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“Just understand that the end began long ago
We got here just in time
Look
All the squares in the sidewalks were already there
All these strangers have more money than you do
All the good riffs have been taken
And everyone is so scared
Murder is commonplace
I don't even flinch at the gunshots outside my window
I feel lonely without them”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“I've got a knife and I want to talk to you
I've got a prayer and I want to carve it to you
I've got no chance, that's why I'm looking to you
O Lord, ride with me”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“He had one of those typical piece of shit days. The grind always. At least this time he had the guys to stay away from the bar and not drive home to the wife and kid drunk. He got home and immediately everything pissed him off. Sometimes the way his wife looked at him made him want to kill himself. The way she all of a sudden appeared like a total stranger. The vacancy in her eyes, it was bad. He took his son's favourite plastic mug, the one with the picture of Magic Johnson, and threw it into the trash. He felt better but not much.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“A man came up to me the other day and said he hadn't had a bite in weeks. So you know what I did? I walked by him like he didn't even exist.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“I like walking heavy on these disease-ridden streets. I like walking the streets knowing that underneath my jacket is the perfect solution to any dilemma I might encounter. I look at people differently. I meet their gaze until they look away. I like taking my gun for walks. I do not believe in hope. I do not believe that people are going to someday get it together and live in peace and harmony. I don't have time for political correctness. I'm not going to try to talk my way out of a bad situation. I'm just going to shoot the fucker in the face and be done with it.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“I shoved three CDs up my ass and got them out of Tower Records. It hurt like hell but I did it. New Michael Bolton, new Sting, and the best of Sammy Hagar. Totally painful. Definitely worth it.”
― Henry Rollins, quote from Eye Scream
“Does he love me? Does he love anyone more than me? Does he love me more than I love him? Perhaps all the questions we ask of love, to measure, test, probe, and save it, have the additional effect of cutting it short. Perhaps the reason we are unable to love is that we yearn to be loved, that is, we demand something (love) from our partner instead of delivering ourselves up to him demand-free and asking for nothing but his company.”
― Milan Kundera, quote from The Unbearable Lightness of Being
“I was raised among books, making invisible friends in pages that seemed cast from dust and whose smell I carry on my hands to this day.”
― Carlos Ruiz Zafón, quote from The Shadow of the Wind
“Even a feeble-minded man wants to be like other men."
--Charlie Gordan”
― Daniel Keyes, quote from Flowers for Algernon
“He was gone, and I did not have time to tell him what I had just now realized: that I forgave him, and that she forgave us, and that we had to forgive to survive in the labyrinth. There were so many of us who would have to live with things done and things left undone that day. Things that did not go right, things that seemed okay at the time because we could not see the future. If only we could see the endless string of consequences that result from our smallest actions. But we can’t know better until knowing better is useless. And as I walked back to give Takumi’s note to the Colonel, I saw that I would never know. I would never know her well enough to know her thoughts in those last minutes, would never know if she left us on purpose. But the not-knowing would not keep me from caring, and I would always love Alaska Young, my crooked neighbor, with all my crooked heart.”
― John Green, quote from Looking for Alaska
“And when you look at the sky you know you are looking at stars which are hundreds and thousands of light-years away from you. And some of the stars don’t even exist anymore because their light has taken so long to get to us that they are already dead, or they have exploded and collapsed into red dwarfs. And that makes you seem very small, and if you have difficult things in you life it is nice to think that they are what is called negligible, which means they are so small you don’t have to take them into account when you are calculating something.”
― Mark Haddon, quote from The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time
BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.
We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.
Founded in 2023, BookQuoters has quickly become a large and vibrant community of people who share an affinity for books. Books are seen by some as a throwback to a previous world; conversely, gleaning the main ideas of a book via a quote or a quick summary is typical of the Information Age but is a habit disdained by some diehard readers. We feel that we have the best of both worlds at BookQuoters; we read books cover-to-cover but offer you some of the highlights. We hope you’ll join us.