Robert Plant

What I recall for the first two years is my daughter not really knowing who I was and getting rather agitated when I came back off tour, as she thought I’d come to rob the house.

The trouble is now, with rock’n’roll and stuff, it gets so big that it loses what once upon a time was a magnificent thing, where it was special and quite elusive and occasionally a little sinister and it had its own world nobody could get in.

How can you consider flower power outdated? The essence of my lyrics is the desire for peace and harmony. That’s all anyone has ever wanted. How could it become outdated?

Presley was definitely a great inspiration to every guy who ever had a hard-on in the whole of the Western world, I should think. He shook everybody well and true, and we just kept on shakin’. But he started it.

You can’t even imagine how it felt to have a cassette that you could take with you with a microphone so you could put down an idea and not have to hum it a million times to remember what it was.

I don’t take myself that seriously. I’ve just had a good, big life. It’s a big one.

Do I love the road? Honestly? No – but it’s how I earn my living. I also don’t have the blues, like it’s some kind of fever. The blues is my job. It’s what I do.

[on the harsh standards placed on women by Hollywood] It’s one of those endless competitions, but it’s like running a race toward nothing. “There’s no winning. You’re never going to win the thin race. You’re never going to win the pretty race. You’re never going to win the smart race. You’re never going to win the funny race. I just want to be the best version of myself I can be.

Last year in L.A. county 150 out of 151 incumbents ran unopposed. And come on. They could at least go through the motions of pretending there was another candidate. Just throw a robe on a pelican and tape a gavel to his wing. Or – I’ll tell you what – you’re in L.A. Just pretend you’re considering Blake Lively for the job. Movie studios do that all the time.

I don’t speak particularly well. That’s one of the consequences of being extremely ugly.

I’ve got this brilliant thing where I go, “I’m Robbie Williams”, and people are interested in what I want to say – which is amazing because I’m just an idiot from Stoke-on-Trent.

There’s no better money to spend than your own.

I don’t know, I like to go on really different types of dates. Going someplace new or some new part of the city, something that’s not your average thing. Something where you just go have an adventure together.

Being such a big band is never a problem but it can be distracting.

Comedy is acting out optimism.

I’ll take opinions from anyone from Jay-Z to a janitor, and I might value the janitor’s opinion more.

People say you can’t please everyone all the time. I don’t believe that. I think you can. I’m not like, ‘Oh I’m Kanye West.’ I’m like, ‘Oh you don’t like it? Oh wow!’ To the point where I know you have to like it.

I think actors have a choice of drawing attention to themselves or living on the outskirts.

I quite liked Sharkey and George and then there was a cartoon with rapper MC Hammer in it – Hammertime – I loved that cartoon, it was genius! They don’t make cartoons like that anymore.

Sarah Palin has been hired back by Fox News, and she only left five months ago. She has now effectively quit quitting. She can’t even commit to being uncommitted.

[On being told that he should be an agent with him having no acting ‘gifts’. And saying that you need to know absolutely nothing to be an agent.] I thought that’s the job for me.