Jack White Quotes

I think the most important thing is to start with something that fits perfectly. Don't worry about having it in five colors.

I dabbled in things like Howlin' Wolf, Cream and Led Zeppelin, but when I heard Son House and Robert Johnson, it blew my mind. It was something I'd been missing my whole life. That music made me discard everything else and just get down to the soul and honesty of the blues.

I love him (Muse) too much, and you can't hurt someone that you love that much . . . unless you're family.

A songwriter's heart is pure when they have the desire to keep digging deeper into music. And invariably, when you dig deeper it always leads you into the past.

Saying you love something out loud with the wrong intonation in your face can damn you and destroy what you're working on.

It's funny because when you do become successful, you're forced to look backwards and try to crawl back into the womb where you first started to create.

Onstage, I don't feel any glory from people clapping in the audience, but when they're pushing me to do something new that feels good.

I believe I am a better director than actor. I enjoy acting if the part is right. Directing comes very naturally to me. I enjoy it. I am very confident in my work.

You can't steal an artist's songs and also tell him he can't license that music to a commercial.

I just think old old movies, they make you concentrate and pay attention so much more. They feel so warm. A lot of modern digital videotape, it's just too bright. Don't know why, it's not warm.

If you're doing something that people want, they'll find you.

I've always loved the word blunderbuss. I've always thought that it was a beautiful word and that it could mean several different things.

Amy Winehouse: Did she invent white soul? Wearing a beehive? No. But she did something brand new and fresh, altogether as a package, and you see who's in her wake, from the Duffys to the Lana Del Reys. Adele selling 20 million records? That would not have happened if Amy Winehouse was alive.

Every time there's a list of the 100 greatest records of all time, all those albums were recorded in two days. Hardly any of them took a year, I'll tell you. In this day and age, I think it's important that people know that.

If you saw me working with construction crews or graphic designers, you'd see how much I'm really hoping for them to bring something to the table and let God in the room and let things happen naturally.

Relationships of any kind are powerful, and they always influence an artist. It's inescapable.

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 think that sometimes love gets in the way of itself - you know, love interrupts itself. We want things so much that we sabotage them.

Vinyl is the real deal. I've always felt like, until you buy the vinyl record, you don't really own the album. And it's not just me or a little pet thing or some kind of retro romantic thing from the past. It is still alive.

Do not trust people who call themselves musicians or record collectors who say that they don’t like Bob Dylan or the Beatles. They do not love music if those words come out of their mouths.

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

There aren't that many things left that haven't already been done, especially with music. I'm interested in ideas that can shake us all up.

I know that's blasphemous when you are from Detroit, but I was never a fan of Motown stuff. I don't care for the production much.

It seemed like there was no control over it. I think certain things just popped. God was blessing us in telling us that certain things were going the way they were supposed to go.

I came up from growing up with a lot of Catholic guilt, a lot of punk rock, hipster guilt in the later years where I think people have thrown a lot of things on me. Where I always felt like I'm not supposed to tell the horn section what to play or I don't want to come off egotistical.

I don't feel very good about myself. People always leave me. Nobody can stand me for very long. I wish I could cut my tongue out, or take out the part of my brain that has opinions. Or cares. I wish I could be simple. Be quiet, introverted, or shy. I'm half way in between a wallflower at a party and Elvis Presley. People love one or the other. In between is no place to be.

If what you are doing is working, DON'T change just to be different. Just get better.

I keep guitars that are, you know, the neck's a little bit bent and it's a little bit out of tune. I want to work and battle it and conquer it and make it express whatever attitude I have at that moment. I want it to be a struggle.

Any man with a microphone can tell you what he loves the most.

You can't do better than that.

You want to figure out how you want to play the guitar; what your niche would be. Well you just start digging deeper. When you're digging deeper in rock and roll you're on a freight train heading straight for the blues.

The secret of a successful art career is to make more art that folks think they need than pieces they just want. When a piece of art emotionally connects with a person the work becomes a need. You are then on your way to becoming successful.

It's harder to put yourself in a place where you could easily be seen as a fake. But that's more interesting to me.

In all my songs, I take on roles and play characters. It's a unique way to explore ideas and decisions I might not think or make in real life.

Captain Lone Wolf Gonzaullas was one of a kind. I'm sure he would agree to this truth, If you continuously compete with others, you will become bitter. If you constantly compete with yourself, you can become great.

The biggest failures come round and spring ultimate surprises of survival.

I have never in my whole life asked for an autograph. It seems a little ... unnecessary.

A lot of people in the media, and some everyday people, really aren't in search of the truth. They're in search of something worse than that. Money, yeah. I think the media's the kind of a thing where the truth doesn't win, because it's no fun. The truth's no fun.

The Bottom Line: If people don't LOVE our work, we will not be able to sell what we make.

Great work comes from great joy. Leave the angst for the movies; do art - that is fun.

It was really hard to find people to come over and play guitar and sing and write songs together. So that turned me into a songwriter that way, just so I could be able to play with other people.

It is the pursuit of happiness that brings us happiness, and not the happiness achieved.

As an artist, you take things from your environment, and there's going to be a style coming out of your environment.

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.'

I trust no one who hasn’t time for music.

Nowadays, everybody assumes, when the 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.

Our art is an adventure. It is a dream come true.

Jesus Christ, is this an NPR convention?