Daily Inspiration Quote by Richard O'Brien

There is a sly kind of humility baked into Richard O'Brien's refusal to frame Rocky as something he can simply "move on" from. The first clause, "Not that I have any interest in saying goodbye", sounds like a throwaway clarification, but it's really a boundary: he isn't playing the tasteful veteran who politely retires a role. He's declaring that the usual career narrative - the dignified farewell, the neat evolution - doesn't apply here.

O'Brien's language is pointedly personal and slightly defensive. "I absolutely adore" is unabashed, almost childlike in its certainty, and it sidesteps cynicism about fan culture by meeting it head-on with affection. The subtext is: if you think returning to Rocky is indulgent or stuck-in-the-past, you're misunderstanding what this thing is. He isn't clinging to relevance; he's acknowledging a feedback loop where the work keeps living because audiences keep animating it.

The key word is "phenomenon". He doesn't say "a successful show" or even "a cult classic". Phenomenon suggests something bigger than authorship, bigger than any single production - a social event, a recurring ritual. That matters for Rocky Horror, whose afterlife was built in midnight theaters, audience callbacks, costumes, and communal transgression. O'Brien positions himself not as a curator looking down at a legacy, but as a participant inside a moving ecosystem. It's less nostalgia than membership: he wants to stay embedded in the mess, the joy, and the shared ownership that made Rocky immortal.