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.

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.

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.

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

Well, I sort of don't trust anybody who doesn't like Led Zeppelin.

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

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.

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.

I won't let love disrupt, corrupt, or interrupt me.

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.

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

The whole world's writing novels, but nobody's reading them. We need readers. More readers. Fewer writers.

Truly there are different kinds of pain.  But the most agonizing is the pain of regret, for which there is no lasting relief and no remedy.

Frailty, thy name is woman!—A little month, or ere those shoes were oldWith which she follow'd my poor father's body, Like Niobe, all tears:—

The 2 greatest equalizers in life: Education and the Internet.

The spark of a genius exists in the brain of the truly creative man from the hour of his birth. True genius is always inborn and never cultivated, let alone learned.

I didn't really get a normal childhood.

Who hears the fishes when they cry?

The system he (President Hosni Mubarak) is recommending would make it virtually impossible for truly independent parties to participate. Sham democracy should be exposed for what it truly is.

They both smiled at the picture of Albert in his chinos and button-down shirt exhorting kids from atop a bike.

You can't just buy things for the label - it's ridiculous.