Robert Plant

A song is a song, you know? First of all comes a song, second of all comes the way it’s promoted … where you place it and what happens to it and how it gets streamed and all that sort of thing is in the lap of the gods, and maybe artists in the end just take a back seat and let it roll.

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

There’s not a lot of towns that I can go to and take family – too many incongruous knocks on doors – “Hello, honey. Have you missed me?”

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

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.

I’ve been a life-time member of the Black Country community and I’m supporting the Wolverhampton Youth Zone. I think it’s a very welcome and crucial addition to the life of kids in our area.

I can’t believe you recently had a baby. How do you do it? [pause] The baby starts to come down…and once that happens you can’t-it comes out. Whether you let it or not, the baby comes out. So that’s how I did it.

No, I was two years older than the other guys. I was a war baby. My family were a lot poorer than they were. I’d had to fight too hard for anything I had in my life and to smash things up for me.

[on turning down a role in ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’] I didn’t really fancy sitting in a hotel room in Los Angeles for nine weeks for two minutes on screen, to be honest. I don’t really want to be an actor. I want to write and direct. I’ve been offered about ten British films. Obviously all shit. I was offered one with Johnny Depp, but again, it was a small character part, and I thought, ‘What’s the point?’ No one’s ever watched someone in seven films for one minute and said, ‘Yeah, give him his own film’…it doesn’t happen.”

What is really important for a woman, you know, even more than being beautiful or intelligent, is to be entertaining.

These critics with the illusions they’ve created about artists – it’s like idol worship. They only like people when they’re on their way up… I cannot be on the way up again.

[on the MTV movie awards] Ryan was whispering in my ear as we’re winning the award. He’s like, ‘You go that way, I’ll go this way, and we’ll meet in the middle. I was like, ‘What?!? You better not chicken out or I’ll kill you!’ It was fun.

[on having a baby] Obviously, this isn’t the time in my life that I would have chosen to do this, but I feel like life gives you these challenges for a reason. I feel so happy and glad to be in the place that I am. I really feel blessed. This is something I need to face and take control of.

I’ve had many nicknames over the years: V, Nessa, Nessy Poo, Nessy Bear and Van. Only my parents call me Van, though, and I hate it. I get embarrassed.

[on accepting his CBE] I owe everything to the musicians I work with. From the UK to Africa to Tennessee, it is their brilliance that I bounce off. Alone I’m nothing.

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

Whitney Houston’s cover of “I Will Always Love You” was constantly on my FM Walkman radio around that time. I think that made me cry because I associated it with absolutely no one.

I love you, yes I do, I love you. If you break my heart I’ll die. So be sure it’s true when you say I love you It’s a sin to tell a lie.

When I do eventually drop, I pray to God that it’ll happen in one of three ways. Firstly, on stage or leaving the stage, then secondly in my sleep. And the third way? You’ll have to figure that out for yourself!

I am constantly amazed by Tina Fey. And I am Tina Fey.

In the past, I had workaholic issues.