Robert Plant

I don’t have a recollection of mostly anybody I’ve hung out with.

Old men do it better. We’re not so sensitive in certain areas.

There have been people I’ve warmed to over the years but, as the situation I’m in is so fleeting and transient, I’ve always known it’s going to be over kind of real quick.

I hear the sound of time roaring past me, …And there is no time to lose.

So when I come across as being everybody’s mate and nice and humble, I’m only nice and humble to a certain degree; the other side of me is arrogantly determined to do what the f**k I want.

My vocal style I haven’t tried to copy from anyone. It just developed until it became the girlish whine it is today.

I moved out at 18. I always studied classes and trained a lot, you know. I think nowadays is such a different time because there’s so many channels promoting the celebrity aspect of things.

I think Pete did have a hard time as a kid with his appearance. But don’t all kids have a hard time? God, I had a hard time, too. I was little with bow legs and rickets. I used to get picked on like everybody used to get picked on.

One Christmas, when Freddie and I were flatmates in Kensington, we were trying to cook Christmas dinner but all we had was a packet of bread sauce that you make with water. We used to dream of a can of beans. (…) At Ridge Farm, when we weren’t working we would swim, play bad tennis, bad snooker and be beaten at table tennis by Freddie. I think he had been the champion at his boarding school and I never, ever saw him lose a game. That summer was more like a youth club rather than wild parties. In the evenings we would go down to the pub, come back to the barn and play more music.

I think mystery is kind of great. I don’t know anything about Bette Davis or Katharine Hepburn or Ava Gardner – not really – and I like that. I love watching their movies because they’re my personal movie stars. I don’t know what they eat and who their trainer is.

Dammit, interviews are not what I do.

Before you, my life was like a moonless night, but there were stars-points of light and reason. Then you flew across my sky, and there was light. When you were gone, when the meteor had flown over the horizon, nothing had changed, but my eyes had been blinded by the light. I couldnt see the light anymore, and there ceased to be a reason for anything.

[On strange stories written about him] Recently a magazine had on the cover that I was pregnant. I was just like, “Wow!” It was without a hint of irony. I didn’t know what to make of that one. I saw a couple of comments under the article saying, “That’s why he always wears jackets. He always wears layers to hide it.

They said, ‘Well, it can be done, but we’ll have to do it a different way (rather than purchasing the series).’ So here we are.

Right now, I do not like kids at all. I mean, I love my fans and everything, but when you have kids following you around all day, it’s like, “Ugh, kids!” Maybe that will change when I get older.

You can’t be that kid standing at the top of the waterslide, overthinking it. You have to go down the chute.

[On Hollywood’s initial response to his Garden State script] Everyone said no. Everyone with a date book and a phone in Los Angeles said no.

I guess I was a floater, but not really. I don’t know. I didn’t get high school.

When David Beckham got a tattoo of Jesus, the response from most soccer fans was, ‘That’s huge for Jesus. That’s a big deal for him’.

If I went out in killer heels and full makeup, blow dry, the whole thing – anyone dressed up like that could be intimidating to men and women, really. It’s so, look at me. Do you know what I mean? But I love women.

I sort of identify with him (Cedric) in a couple of ways. Generally, I am quite pleasant. I think he is too, and I think that is one of the basic similarities. Let’s see, I’ve got blond hair, I am relatively sporty. But, I think he is a better person than me.