Jack White Quotes

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

The bottom line is we must get off our duff and make an effort to succeed. Trust me on this, when you see someone successful in any of the arts they have been willing to make an extra effort.

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

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

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 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.

The secret is planning your work and working your plan. If you don't know where you are going, how will you know when you arrive? You can't stumble upon your destination.

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.

Jesus Christ, is this an NPR convention?

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.

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

Music is what I have to do, I only answer the questions so that I can do it.

I wanted to be able to talk with people who have trade jobs and make records with them. I want to do more records with carpenters, electricians, people who specialize in even more bizarre trades that are off the beaten path.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Can there be enough books to answer all your questions?

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.

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.

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.'

When I say nothing, I say everything

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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 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.

We learn to beat fear by doing.

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.

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 can't imagine being anything creative in a major town because everybody's doing the same exact thing you're doing. How can you not get confused about what you yourself are doing?

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

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.

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

This is a fact. If you don't make art people like, you will never earn a living as an artist.

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'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 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.

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 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.

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

We were like a white family from the 1920s or something. My parents had this bizarre, different way of looking at things from the people that surrounded us. I went to an all-Mexican grade school and an all-black high school, and not many people in those places liked the same stuff as me.

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.

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.

I have so many projects to work on I'm going to have to live to at least 120 to get some of them done.

Collectors are paying for our education by purchasing our art.

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.

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

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.

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.

In my bands, I don't really walk around telling people what to play, just out of respect really. I mean, if there's something I feel in my gut, I'll bring it up.

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

I certainly wouldn't want a song that I'd already written to be used on a commercial. That seems strange.

I say this often, THINK. There is something in life called common sense. Webster's says common sense is sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts. Perhaps this is why in 1776, Thomas Paine used these words as a title for the most famous pamphlet ever written.

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

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.

From now on take time to be amazing, tell those who matter, I LOVE YOU.

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

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.

Selling is nothing more than asking questions and waiting for an answer.

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.'

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.

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

Vinyl survived, we managed not to kill it. Knowing that you've taken part in this fight ... You can't imagine the happiness it brings. Every time I see a kid going out of the store with a vinyl record under the arms, my heart beats faster. Music should only be this. An intense emotion.

An auctioneer is such a uniquely American thing. I keep thinking in my head, perhaps it's not as American as I think, but it feels so Southern. It feels so American. Like, hundreds of years of American tradition is involved in it.

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.

Your passion must be tempered with patience. Maybe long-suffering patience would be a better word.

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

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.