Top 140 Jack White Quotes (2024 Update)
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101. “Relationships of any kind are powerful, and they always influence an artist. It’s inescapable.”

— Jack White

102. “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.”

— Jack White

103. “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

104. “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.”

— Jack White

105. “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.”

— Jack White

106. “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.”

— Jack White

107. “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.”

— Jack White

108. “I always stayed away from the studio environment as much as possible. But I just wanted to see if I could work in one. It’s not easy. Just having an engineer’s assistant around is enough for me to be uncomfortable. With more than one person there in the room, it feels strange.”

— Jack White

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

— Jack White

110. “The true professional makes art when he is not feeling good, if the studio is too cold or too warm or the walls are falling down. We are painters and we paint. If I were a sculptor, I’d sculpt.”

— Jack White

111. “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.”

— Jack White

112. “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

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

— Jack White

114. “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

115. “I won’t let love disrupt, corrupt, or interrupt me.”

— Jack White

116. “Onstage, I don’t feel any glory from people clapping in the audience, but when they’re pushing me to do something new that feels good.”

— Jack White

117. “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.”

— Jack White

118. “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.”

— Jack White

119. “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.”

— Jack White

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

— Jack White

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

— Jack White

122. “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?”

— Jack White

123. “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.”

— Jack White

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

— Jack White

125. “We learn to beat fear by doing.”

— Jack White

126. “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.”

— Jack White

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

— Jack White

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

— Jack White

129. “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.”

— Jack White

130. “Great work comes from great joy. Leave the angst for the movies; do art – that is fun.”

— Jack White

131. “Collectors are paying for our education by purchasing our art.”

— Jack White

132. “Nowadays, everybody assumes, when the 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.”

— Jack White

133. “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

134. “If you’re doing something that people want, they’ll find you.”

— Jack White

135. “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

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

— Jack White

137. “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.”

— Jack White

138. “I won’t join another band again.”

— Jack White

139. “No. I know that’s blasphemous when you are from Detroit.”

— Jack White

140. “I have so much music inside me I’m just trying to stay afloat.”

— Jack White

141. “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.”

— Jack White

142. “It’s hard to find other musicians that push you to go somewhere new all the time.”

— Jack White

143. “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.”

— Jack White

144. “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.”

— Jack White

145. “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.”

— Jack White

146. “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.”

— Jack White

147. “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.”

— Jack White

148. “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.”

— Jack White

149. “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.”

— Jack White