The White Stripes

"I'm coming through the door, but they're expecting more Of an interesting man, sometimes I think I can; But how much can I fake? I'll speak until I break; With every word I say, offend in every way"

"All you little kids seem to think you know just where it's at Oh, I think I smell a rat"

"What a season To be beautiful Without a reason"

"I don't want to know about my biggest idols. I don't want to read their autobiographies, I don't want to find out what they're really like."

"I was able to afford a car that didn't break down every five minutes."

"Actually I don't. I've never played with a bass player before, so I wouldn't even know. It wouldn't feel like it's missing, I just think it's normal … I prefer it that way so I only have to concentrate on Jack."

"It's in this book I was reading. Apparently, there's a little red demon dwarf that haunts the city, and before every major bad thing that's happened, it's appeared to somebody. Last time, he appeared in a Cadillac."

"We were like a moth right next to the flame. It's like, do any more and you go down. We were so tired. One final lap, and then have a rest."

"I wasn't brought up with any religion, actually."

"We've never had problems. We love each other, understand each other, and get past anything."

"A really unique feel and super heavy because of the space between the hits. Very influential on me as a teenager. I often think of her when doing certain kick and cymbal hits together. —"

"The White Stripes weren't all about Jack White's howling, ripping guitars, even if that's where the conversation tends to go in certain circles. The fact is, Meg White's minimalistic style was the perfect counter to Jack's shredding, a primal dynamic that gave their tunes that definitive garage stomp. Jack provided the flash, Meg provided the feel."

"We never really cared about all the things that other people cared about, you know? Like, people recognizing me on the street never interested me. I've always been kind of suspicious of the world, anyway, so it's pretty easy for me to live in my own little world."

"Is this some kind of fucking radio promotion? What the fuck is this? 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."

"You can't do better than that."

"Well that's a polite thing to say but that's fucking ridiculous."

"I tend to be that guy, you know? When me and four friends walk into a restaurant and nobody else talks to the host, I say, “Yeah, it’s a table for five.” I don’t want to be that guy; I wish someone else would say something. But it always ends up being me, and I hate what comes with that. There’s a lot of baggage—ego and narcissism—that comes with leadership. It’s difficult to cope with at times."

"It'll sometimes hit me in the middle of a song, like, who do I think I am standing up here...playing."

"I saw a review of our new album, and it said, "Every single component of the White Stripes is a gigantic lie." What does that mean? Have I sat down and said I was born in Mississippi? No. Did I say I grew up on a plantation and learned how to play guitar from a blind man? I never said anything like that. It's funny that people think me and Meg sit up late at night, in front of a gas lamp, and come up with these intricate lies to trick people."

"I'm not saying I came up with anything [laughs]. It's like people thinking we would be more real if we went onstage in jeans and T-shirts. How ignorant is that, to think that because they don't wear a suit onstage that someone is giving you the real deal? People do come and see us and think, "Look at all these gimmicks." Go ahead, man. Go ahead and think that."

"I see him becoming one of the greatest record producers there is."

"Jack is the showman—the brassy frontman and the snake-oil trader."

"I would love to be Jack White — or maybe I want the peo­ple who like Jack White to also like me. But I”m the guy who writes beau­ti­ful music at 85 beat per minute."

"I wasn’t prepared. He had a big Mercedes, with a custom sound system, and he drove like hell through Nashville traffic, with Slim Harpo at defcon 1 volume."

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

"No. I know that's blasphemous when you are from Detroit."

"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'm always surprised when anything about the band connects. But I love the fact that it's hard for people to understand. We've said before that it's always been a great thing to get certain people to go away thinking, 'Oh dear, she can't play the drums!' 'Fine, if you think it's all a gimmick, go away!' It weeds out people who wouldn't care anyway."

"Frank Sinatra was dignified. We don't have a Frank Sinatra, or a Patti Page nowadays. What do we have? Ashlee Simpson instead of Patti Page! I mean, look at those people - like Paris Hilton! Who are all these skanks, man? Little girls are looking up to these girls, and it's so gross. Those girls have no dignity at all, and parents are letting their kids dress up like those skanks. But what else have they got? What are the other choices? Somebody had the nerve to ask me if I wanted to play guitar on Lindsay Lohan's album! She's another one of those 16-year-old actresses, and she's making an album! Like, 'NO!' Ha ha ha!"

"I feel it, you felt it—we're all struggling with the trouble that this industry is in right now. And it's not about sales; it's about beauty and romance and a relationship to art that's turning invisible, and it's affecting people's perception of music. It's affecting whether they think of it as a viable art, because it's so fucking disposable. It's not about being modern or retro or a Luddite or being hopeful or pessimistic about the future; it's about clinging on to what makes sense of our lives, and what give our lives value, and what gives us a commonality and a feeling of belonging."

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

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

"Every time there's a list of the 100 greatest records of all time, all those albums were recorded in two days. Hardly any of them took a year, I'll tell you. In this day and age, I think it's important that people know that."

"At times, we [the White Stripes] almost ignore our own music. If we have the stage, we've gotta play Son House's music, because there's nobody to keep it alive. We don't wanna be known as the band that's conducting music instruction class. But that's all everyone talks about - why MTV's not good, why radio's not good. And the answer is really because whatever you want to call it - blues, country, folk - isn't around any more. That's why everyone's so mad, and I'm tired of it being my job to bring it back."

"'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.'"