ROBERT PLANT

If I didn't do what I do, I wouldn't be as young as I am.

I hate wasting time.

When I was a kid, I was following black soul music.

Alone I'm nothing.

You would find in a lot of Zep stuff that the riff was the juggernaut that careered through and I worked the lyrics around this.

I realized what Led Zeppelin was about around the end of our first U.S. tour. We started off not even on the bill in Denver, and by the time we got to New York we were second to Iron Butterfly, and they didn't want to go on!

I'm not a flowerchild or anything like that... whatever it was.

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.

No, I've never thought that I was gay. And that's not something you think. It's something you know.

Led Zeppelin has been there through three generations of teenage angst. And there's a generation of kids now who won't know it, post-Linkin Park.

I like the idea of being alone. I like the idea of often being alone in all aspects of my life. I like to feel lonely. I like to need things.

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

I owe everything to the musicians I work with.

There are always generic terms like 'Americana', but there are no boundaries as to where it can go.

I've stopped apologizing to myself for having this great period of success and financial acceptance.

You know, people can't fall in love with me just because I'm good at what I do.

I'm just lucky because my kids are grown-up - I love them, very proud of them, and we are in close contact as big-time friends, but they don't need me that much now and I can actually enjoy this wonderful world of music.

I don't think I've aged gracefully.

The kind of vocal exaggeration that I developed was based on what key songs were in.

I hate cliche.

Lately, I'm spending more and more time working with non-rock musicians and leaving the mainstream - almost dissolving into another world, musically.

The past is a stepping stone, not a millstone.

You feel quite distant by playing at huge stadiums year after year, where you only can see a great darkness in front of you.

So for a long time I closed my eyes to the possibility of America having a white voice.

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.