I think the sensitivity that you need to create certain things sometimes would spill over into things that shouldn’t have bothered me. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
I think you can’t really escape any kind of spiritual education as a child, whether it’s New Age or Judaism or Buddhism or whatever it is. You can’t escape it, even if you completely disagree with it, you still have it as a foundation that you base things off of. – Jack White
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.’ – Jack White
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. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
My mother’s the youngest of 10 children too, so we have sort of a special bond in that we know what that feels like. It’s a strange spot to be in. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
If you have twenty guys in the room and you just bring in one girl, you change the entire mood and everyone plays different. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
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.’ – Jack White
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. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
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. – Jack White
