Jack White

“With the White Stripes we were trying to trick people into not realising we were playing the blues. We did not want to come off like white kids trying to play black music from 100 years ago so a great way to distract them was by dressing in red, white and black.”

“I really don't like to take the easy way out, if I can help it, on anything I do, I like to really make it a challenge. I don't know how to create by taking the easy routes. I've tried, you know, I've tried to let myself, but I always struggle to compensate.”

“That's what happens nowadays with people working on computers. They can so easily fix things with their mouse and take out all the, 'Oh, somebody coughed in the background; we need to take that out' - or somebody hit a bad note. Those are all the best moments.”

“Music is what I have to do, I only answer the questions so that I can do it.”

“There's Catholic guilt about things, then there's the guilt of being the youngest of 10, so when nice things happen to you, you're not really allowed to enjoy them.”

“I won't join another band again.”

“I would never purposely sing a song about someone I love, I wouldn't want to embarrass them. But for someone I don't like... I would definitely do that.”

“Nowadays, everybody assumes, when they wake up in the morning, if they have a question, it will get answered. Because they have the internet. No matter what the question is, someone will answer their question.”

“I think you can't really escape any kind of spiritual education as a child, whether it's New Age or Judaism or Buddhism or whatever it is. You can't escape it, even if you completely disagree with it, you still have it as a foundation that you base things off of.”

“Playing drums feels like coming home for me. Even during the White Stripes I thought: 'I'll do this for now, but I'm really a drummer.' That's what I'll put on my passport application.”

“I certainly wouldn't want a song that I'd already written to be used on a commercial. That seems strange.”

“I didn't really even think of recording under my own name for a long time. I thought, 'I've got the rest of my life to do that.'”

“The fact that we elected Obama was a sign that the black struggle inherent in the blues and so much of the music I have loved can triumph.”

“I have so much music inside me I'm just trying to stay afloat. I don't tend to write for a particular band - you have to just write the songs and then let God into the room and let the music tell you what to do.”

“I'd make a White Stripes record right now. I'd be in the White Stripes for the rest of my life. That band is the most challenging, important, fulfilling thing ever to happen to me. I wish it was still here. It's something I really, really miss.”

“People aren't buying records like they used to, so it's nice to try to figure out a way to make them do it. I would enjoy the same thing to own an old movie house, to try to trick people to come in - like having 3-D or Smell-o-Vision or Vibra-Vision or something. Mcguffins to get people interested.”

“We were like a white family from the 1920s or something. My parents had this bizarre, different way of looking at things from the people that surrounded us. I went to an all-Mexican grade school and an all-black high school, and not many people in those places liked the same stuff as me.”

“If you have twenty guys in the room and you just bring in one girl, you change the entire mood and everyone plays different.”

“Well, as a songwriter, it's really dangerous to use the word love in a song. It's a word that has been used in songs so many millions of times before, and it's the most popular topic to ever write about.”

“It is a myth that art has to be sold. It is not like stocking a grocery store where people fill a pushcart. Art is a product that has no apparent need. The salesperson builds the need in the mind of the buyer.”