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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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 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.

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.

This trial is moving like a freight train.

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.

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.'

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

I made a rule for myself in my early 20s not to become a record collector in the sense that I reference all my old records. I can't live like that. I'd just be trapped in comparison, trying to emulate something, so I made a rule to just buy what I need, just the records I need.

It's hard for me to play seated theaters because people tend to sit down and get a little bit complacent, so it's less energy. It's just very dry and dead. People start to feel like they're watching a movie. The environment when they walk into it, it's not standing room only, smoking and drinking and rock 'n' roll. So it's a little bit dangerous to do that.

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

Musically, though, you're a character and you're singing a song. If you're not your own character, you're the character in the song, most of the time. Even blues musicians, a lot of them who were the most realistic, at times, they were singing a song and portraying a character in the song. There's something to be said for getting involved in the emotion of a song, too, with the characters.

People have sort of a problem trying to see an end to a situation as being positive or romantic.

Punk is an attitude, not a genre, age group, or time period. What's interesting is trying to define the blues and punk in different ways. They are very close cousins.

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

The day that music is taken for free by the majority is the day that the phrase "sell out" doesn't exist any more.

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.

I think I've been a good boy long enough and given everyone around me a fair piece of the pie as far as all of the fleeting glory and reward that comes from the heavens - or the music press, whatever you want to call it.

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.

I don't think about my mom when I'm onstage. I just don't really think about my kids when I'm working, and when we press stop and I walk outside, they're the first things I think about.

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.

I would never be able to live in a huge city. I'd feel like one of 100,000 people doing the same thing.

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.

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.

It's hard to find other musicians that push you to go somewhere new all the time.

You need a little resistance-something to fight against.

You can't be an actor in a small town-you have to go to New York or L.A.

I have trouble listening to people tell me about their dreams.

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.

I think the media's the kind of thing where the truth doesn't win, because it's no fun. The truth's no fun.

Your attitude is more important than the events happening around you. Artists develop a syndrome taught in art schools. It is a malady titled, 'Artistic Temperament'... rudeness, excuses, slovenliness, laziness, clutter, addictions, non-commercial attitudes, un-professionalism... and a good reason for failure.

I am a commercial artist because I paint to earn a living. We who earn money from what we produce are all commercial artists.

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 have a suggestion for all of those award seekers and blue ribbon hunters. Spend your efforts on making art that connects with people. Awards impress the grandkids but they don't move the gauge on selling your product. Art needs to touch the emotions of the buyer.

Art doesn't sell itself, it has to be sold.

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.

The wonderful news is that when a person with my lack of art background can be successful, then anyone can. I'm not super talented and had no art training. Nothing, nada, zip. No workshops or classes.

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

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.

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.

You will face boredom and frustration your entire career as artists. You will be very frustrated seeking a voice/style that collectors can connect with. Once you accomplish that voice/style people are clamoring for, you will become bored doing it.

My mother was 45 when she had me, so when I was in high school my parents were the same age as my friends' grandparents.

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.

I don't think there is room for 'artistic temperament.' Professional artists understand art is a business. If businesses ran their companies like many artists do their careers, they would not stay open a year.

Well you're in your little room and you're working on something good but if it's really good you're gonna need a bigger room and when you're in the bigger room you might not know what to do you might have to think of how you got started sitting in your little room

All of us need to self-promote. We cannot sit back and wait for our gallery or rep to do it all.

Collectors are paying for our education by purchasing our art.

The Eagle does not escape the storm. The Eagle simply uses the storm to lift it higher. It spreads its mighty wings and rises on the winds that bring the storm.

The price we sell things for is not important. What is important is we sell art that has to be replaced. You become good in art by doing art. The more you sell, the more you must produce.

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 have three dads: my biological father, God and Bob Dylan.