Jack White Quotes

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

I'm one of those people that you have to keep your eye on or I'll wander off into the woods and forget to come back.

Inspiration and work ethic - they ride right next to each other.

Some guys are afraid of "fashion" even those this isn't really fashion. It's more "style". A lot of guys don't want to look like they care too much. The idea of standing in a fiting room and trying things on and saying, "How does this look?" I think maybe that experience is a little bit intimidating.

I'm excited by the band [White Stripes]. It really excites me. But it wouldn't excite me if there weren't those limitations, if we weren't living in that box, if we weren't trapped. Once that goes away, then I'll know that it's not worth doing it any more.

I've always worked to find really deep meaning of song and also at the same time having it covered in sugar, so it can be taken two or three different ways.

I won't join another band again.

When you put something out there into the world, there's all these words you don't want to hear, that you hope people don't say. I don't like anything that starts with 're' - like retro, reinvent, recreate - I hate that. It's always like living in the past - copying, emulating.

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.

There are distractions, all around. There's so much media, for a young kid to battle against, to get to something soulful. You have to make a decision, on your own, what you can take from these people, if you can dig deeper. It's nice to be able to let people dig deeper.

Luck is when preparation meets opportunity. I'll share the formula I learned while forging my way forward as a full-time painter for forty-four years. The steps all break down to one simple sentence: Make art that connects with enough folks for you to earn a splendid living.

I'm always afraid, because I do most of my stuff at home, where nobody bothers me, and I don't have to stroke somebody's ego or be careful about hurting someone's feelings. But I also want to know that I can still go into the world and be with other people and make music.

I've always been making up my own restrictions for myself, from day one, and it's compelling, because it forces me to think. That's always been a driving force for me.

The most exciting rock 'n' roll band of the last 50 years who are still on the road today

The big picture is a nice way to think of things if you have the freedom to.

I think the sensitivity that you need to create certain things sometimes would spill over into things that shouldn't have bothered me.

Every album I've done pretty much has been not in a pleasant, quote-unquote, environment - it's freezing cold, or it was somebody's house with not-that-great equipment. It's always something that spurs on to get the job done.

I never wanted to play guitar when I was younger. I wanted to be a drummer because everybody plays guitar, and I didn't want to do what everybody else wanted to do.

Some people consider the way Shakespeare was writing about Ophelia as erotomania-that she was delusional in thinking that Hamlet was in love with her. But I don't think so.

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.

Sometimes you just get in there and force yourself to work, and maybe something good will come out, ya know? Deadlines and things make you creative. Opportunity and telling yourself you have all the time in the world, all the money in the world, all the colors in the palette, anything you want-that just kills creativity.

Inspiration and creativity, they ride right next to one anotherNot everyday are you going to wake up, the clouds are gonna part and the rays are gonna come downsometimes you gotta just get in there and force yourself to work and maybe something good will come out of it.

Like it or not, people tend to buy paintings to match their drapes, couch or carpet. I know you want them to be so overwhelmed with your skills they can't resist hauling your art home. These three factors are what dictate most art sales.

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.

The main things to rebel against - over-production, too much technology, overthinking. It's a spoiled mentality; everything is too easy. If you want to record a song, you can buy Pro Tools and record four hundred guitar tracks. That leads to overthinking, which kills any spontaneity and the humanity of the performance.

Promotion and perception are synonymous twins of art marketing.

I have very little interest in the bottom line or signing artists to help make the label profit. That's a lucky, unique position to be in, but it all comes out in the wash.

I hate irony, particularly when it is used because there isn't any message or to hide that someone hasn't any story to tell. Just like when someone only spews out a stack of cool words which don't mean anything and then has the gall to call it art. I always want to create a bridge between us and the listener, and I want it to be so that kids want to create for themselves a story or a context of the words.

Fifteen minutes of fame doesn't make a career. An article in a magazine, newspaper, interview on television or multiple print ads may stroke your ego, but nothing much else. An artist's career is a lifetime venture. Just because an artist is on top doesn't mean they are sheltered from a crash. As has been stated, the higher you climb, the harder you fall.

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'd got accepted to the seminary in Wisconsin, and I was gonna become a priest, but the last second I thought, 'I'll just go to public school.' I had just gotten a new amplifier in my bedroom, and I didn't think I was allowed to take it with me.

Deadlines and things make you creative.

Well, I sort of don't trust anybody who doesn't like Led Zeppelin.

Life is simple unless we find a way to make it complicated.

Telling yourself you have all the time in the world, all the colors in the palette, that just kills creativity.

Nashville has always felt perfect. I don't think Third Man Records could exist in any other town that I know of in America. Anything smaller or larger than the size of Nashville, and also the music - the attention that's paid to music in that town is sort of the right kind. It's not too hipster and it's not too fake; it's something in the middle, which is really good ground for a place like Third Man Records, that aims to be genre-less. It's great to be able to have that kind of access.

When I say nothing, I say everything

What you think is fake in your head comes off as not enough on camera, a lot of times. You almost have to overdo it, in this overly, sort of Broadway, large-gestures kind of way to come off as being realistic on camera. It's strange. You almost have to act really fake to come off looking real.

If you don’t have a struggle inside or around you, you have to make one up.

Like the eagle, we (artists) must be able to see clearly.

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 probably could have a hip-hop-style entourage of 40 people coming with me to the club or whatever, and I don't do that. And I think sometimes maybe I should. It just makes things easier - if you don't like being by yourself, maybe just don't do it ever.

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.

We learn to beat fear by doing.

People talk about wanting amenities - downtown is the amenity.

I won't let love disrupt, corrupt, or interrupt me.

It's easy to learn but takes a lifetime to master.

Technology is a big destroyer of emotion and truth. Auto-tuning doesn’t do anything for creativity. Yeah, it makes it easier and you can get home sooner; but it doesn’t make you a more creative person. That’s the disease we have to fight in any creative field: ease of use.