Early Life
Born Henry Lawrence Garfield in Washington, D.C., the only child of Iris, a federal employee in the health and education sectors, and Paul J. Garfield, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who was a World War II veteran with a PhD in economics. When he was two years old, his parents divorced and he was raised by his mother in the affluent Glover Park neighborhood of the city.
As a child and teenager, Rollins suffered from depression and low self-esteem. In the fourth grade, he was diagnosed with hyperactivity and took Ritalin for several years so that he could focus during school. His mother taught him how to read before he was enrolled in kindergarten; however, due to "bad grades, bad attitude, poor conduct," he was soon enrolled at The Bullis School, then an all-male preparatory school in Potomac, Maryland.
According to Rollins, the Bullis School helped him to develop a sense of discipline and a strong work ethic. It was at Bullis that he began writing; his early literary efforts were mainly short stories about "blowing up my school and murdering all the teachers."; "it was a very rough upbringing in a lot of other ways. I accumulated a lot of rage by the time I was seventeen or eighteen." Rollins regularly rode to school in the back of the bus with a boa-constrictor. He has also mentioned that a Ramones concert helped shape his thoughts on music into becoming the musician he is today.
Read more about this topic: Henry Rollins
Famous quotes containing the words early and/or life:
“In the early forties and fifties almost everybody “had about enough to live on,” and young ladies dressed well on a hundred dollars a year. The daughters of the richest man in Boston were dressed with scrupulous plainness, and the wife and mother owned one brocade, which did service for several years. Display was considered vulgar. Now, alas! only Queen Victoria dares to go shabby.”
—M. E. W. Sherwood (1826–1903)
“... there has been a very special man in my life for the past year. All I’ll say about him is that he’s kind, warm, mature, someone I can trust—and he’s not a politician.”
—Donna Rice (b. c. 1962)