Robert Plant

People have got to let their bodies breathe a little bit more. That’s the great thing about being a pompous, jumped-up rock god. There’s plenty of air around you.

You can’t give up something you really believe in for financial reasons. If you die by the roadside – so be it. But at least you know you’ve tried. Ten minutes in the music scene was the equal of one hundred years outside of it.

The past is a stepping stone, not a millstone.

I’m like one of those firecrackers that goes off in your pocket occasionally. I’m not really struggling with it as much as the people around me. But at least I’m not doing too much damage to anybody or to myself. It’s just the condition I’m aware of.

I’ve been scared and I’ve liked not hanging on to stuff where I know that I’m in my comfort zone.

Being good is about being an all-round contributor in the great world of music.

Never put a question mark where God puts a Period.

See, the problem is that God gives men a brain and a penis, and only enough blood to run one at a time.

I’m pleased with how ridiculous I am. I like me. Though I’m not a huge fan. I know when to switch me off.

Very rarely artists come in on their own terms and get to do everything – whatever they want…it doesn’t really matter about talent in the beginning. Talent is what keeps you here, getting in the door is just about how you start in the music business.

It’s the 2016 election, and it’s 2015 right now. So I don’t care until we’re in the same year as the thing that I’m supposed to care about.

Everyone has an idea that they think would be a great movie. Everyone has a cousin who they think you should work with. Everyone has a warped vision of Hollywood and what success in Hollywood is like. That you love cocaine and that you spend every night in orgies with models. If only it were true.

Amy Poehler and I have been friends for so long we’re like Oprah and Gale. Only we’re not denying anything.

It sounds lame, but I was really concentrating on this job. It was my first American thing so I was pretty focused. I went to Portland for two months before we starting shooting, and I just didn’t talk to anybody for ages during the beginning of the shoot. I never went out, but I kind of broke down half way through. I was like, ‘Okay, people are starting to think that I’m actually out of my mind now.

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

Gay people don’t actually try to convert people. That’s Jehovah’s Witnesses you’re thinking of.

The joy we get as actors is out of transforming ourselves into something that’s not necessarily anything true to ourselves. And it’s a power – not being yourself, and being in the role; it’s just like another prop.

If you’ve got to take it. Take it easy. Never hurry to a date. Eat your supper; let ’em wait.

When faced with sexism or ageism or lookism or even really aggressive Buddhism, ask yourself the following question: ‘Is this person in between me and what I want to do?’ If the answer is no, ignore it and move on. Your energy is better used doing your work and outpacing people that way. Then, when you’re in charge, don’t hire the people who were jerky to you.

Fame is like a river, that beareth up things light and swollen, and drowns things weighty and solid.

What I have to say is far more important than how long my eyelashes are.