If you emphasize one part of the song, it trivializes the rest of the music.

It's kind of ridiculous that I find inspiration in just getting away from everything. But when you've gone through it, you realize that it's the enemy. It's a distraction from what you're really doing. You've got to keep moving. Like a shark.

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 most people, and by people I mean journalists, think that I pre-conceive everything and that I spend my afternoons dreaming up self-mythologizing points of interest.

If you're asking if I would be foolish enough, or insulting enough, to write about people in my life that I respect and sell it to the masses as a "break-up song," I can't imagine doing that to people I love.

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.

You need a little resistance-something to fight against.