Jack White Quotations

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.

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.

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.

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 think it takes a lot of trickery to keep up with the media and its perception of you. I don't know if I have it in me most of the time to care. The music is made first, and the interviews or photos to keep it alive come later as a necessary evil, I suppose.

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.

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 want to be part of the resurgence of things that are tangible, beautiful and soulful, rather than just give in to the digital age. But when I talk to people about this they just say, 'Yeah, I know what you mean,' and stare at their mobiles.

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.

This generation is so dead. You ask a kid, 'What are you doing this Saturday?' and they'll be playing video games or watching cable, instead of building model cars or airplanes or doing something creative. Kids today never say, 'Man, I'm really into remote-controlled steamboats.'

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.

I consider music to be storytelling, melody and rhythm. A lot of hip-hop has broken music down. There are no instruments and no songwriting. So you're left with just storytelling and rhythm. And the storytelling can be so braggadocious, you're just left with rhythm.

I grew up in the 90s in the time of grunge when if you didn't go on stage in jeans and a T shirt you weren't 'real.' That seemed ridiculous to me.

I was in a Montessori school. There was a drum circle with all the kids passing around a little bongo drum. I was the last person in the circle, and when it got to me I played 'Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits' - in front of all the parents. Blew the crowd away at five years old.

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.

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

The Guinness book is a very elitist organization. There's nothing scientific about what they do. They just have an office full of people who decide what is a record and what isn't.

For new bands, I think a major label is the safest place to be. Independent labels are the ones getting away with murder. A lot of them are hobbyists who rip-off young bands, taking advantage of people who would never get signed to a major.

I've always felt it's ridiculous to say, of any of the females in my life: You're my friend, you're my wife, you're my girlfriend, you're my co-worker. 'This is your box, and you're not allowed to stray outside of it.'

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'd Like to Buy the World a Coke.

(Friday) we were kind of tentative. We kind of struggled a little bit and weren't as aggressive as we usually are.

This was one of our better defensive games, but we need to pick it up and hit better.

Let me just say that if whatever said radio station tries to blacklist us for my comments about their balloons, I would like them to know I want a written apology tomorrow for interrupting my song.

People have got to know whether or not their president is a crook. Well, I am not a crook.

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.

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.

Well any man with a microphone can tell you what he loves the most and you know why you love at all if you're thinking of the holy ghost if you're thinking of the holy ghost.

Well any man with a microphonecan tell you what he loves the mostand you know why you love at allif you're thinking of the holy ghostif you're thinking of the holy ghost.

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.

We have a secret project at Third Man where we want to have the first vinyl record played in outer space. We want to launch a balloon that carries a vinyl record player.

The way I like to start a new project is to take a cover song and make a stab at it, ideally one that has nothing to do with the people in the room.

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.

They still don't know where the stolen Scream painting by Munch is. It'll come back sooner or later. What are you going to do with a stolen painting? Hide it in your attic? You can't show it to anyone really, if you're caught with it, I don't know. Strange.

Some people remaster their records six, seven times, remix it three, four times, spend a million hours, then they always go back and hear a demo of it and they'll say, 'Aw that sounds so much better than the final mix.'

This trial is moving like a freight train.

This debate became a source of tremendous embarrassment for South Carolina,

This debate became a source of tremendous embarrassment for South Carolina. The only reason the flag stayed on the statehouse for so long was that a tiny minority of powerful lawmakers dug in their heels and insisted on ignoring the will of the people of the state.

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.

I have so many collections, the doctors told me that I couldnt collect people anymore, only their personalities and memories. So I have that going for me.

I've had a great day today. I flew for thirteen hours and I somehow didn't watch t.v. the whole time. I didn't notice until I was off the plane. I wonder what I was thinking about. 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.

I've had a love for T-Birds since I was a kid. I've had this one for about 20 years. I started working on the car a year and nine months ago, finished Thursday morning and got down here Thursday afternoon. It's got nine miles on it since the restoration from Concord to here.

I'm glad it done like it done because that kid worked so hard,

The auctioneer is talking for both people, and that's the big revelation about, 'Oh, that's what they're doing.' They're just doing it very fast, so you could kind of miss on that. He's speaking for you, because people in the crowd don't have a voice, so that's what really makes it compelling.

If you want to put out a million CDs and sell them and get them played on the radio, and even videos, or whatever, if that still exists, that kind of muscle can only come from a label like Columbia.

You can't punish me for that. Don't ask me my opinion and then punish me for the answer I give you! Better still, just don't ask. Or don't expect truth. Fruit from the tree of knowledge. I love it! If you think I'm going to give you an opinion that's popular then you are talking to the wrong person. I don't know how to do that. I don't know how to turn my brain off and do what you would like me to do.

I definitely think it's a problem. I think a lot of people aren't saving simply because they don't know what they should be saving for.

I don't think Arlen did anything that bad.

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.

Maybe we should all just listen to records and quit our jobs

Many days you will want to give up because of rejections and failures. Passion to be an artist will help you prevail where others fail.

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

Passion is the breath we take, the water we drink to sustain ourselves. Without air and water we perish; without passion an artist will wither and blow away.

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

It's a sound bite. It's very of this age, because that's what people want.

Failure comes when we don't get back up and try again.

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

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

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

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

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

There have been three times. Once I got in a car accident and shattered my finger. A few years ago I didn't feel like being alive. That's all I can say.

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.

Mastery is the rudder, Mystery is the sail and Magic the wind to move you in your chosen direction.

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

Can there be enough books to answer all your questions?

Success is having a career that you love with every fiber in your body.

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.

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

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

You can't do better than that.

We don't have to live up to the expectations of others. Passion is personal. As long as our passion is fueled with the right stuff then keep on plodding forward. I'll never be Mark Twain or Tom Clancy. But that's okay, because neither of them could teach you to mix a boundless number of grays, or where to place the catch light in a portrait.

I cannot judge what motivates people. We are all moved by one of four things or a combination of these four things: money, romance, recognition or survival.

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

The only person who is hurt by jealousy is you... Eliminate that word from your life... it may not make you unsuccessful selling your art, but it will destroy your happiness.

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.

You hear a lot of people, they turn 40 and it really bugs them and they get depressed or whatever. I don't know - I just don't feel that way. I feel 19 years old all the time. I mean, it's not a lie. I could easily say, God, I feel 70. Or maybe I seem like I'm 70 or 200 or something to other people, I don't know. My brain feels 19 all the time. And that's a good spot.

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

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.

I gave myself over to music and art a long time ago, so I don't get to relax and I don't get to sit still. The best I can do is constantly create my own environment so it benefits what I need to accomplish in the next step.

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 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.

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

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.

Jesus Christ, is this an NPR convention?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Worry means tormenting yourself with disturbing thoughts or fretting about things we have zero control over. If you live in the north there is no need to worry about the snow. You will get plenty each year. If you live in California or Texas you needn't worry about rain because we won't receive any.

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.

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.

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.