Robert Plant

I think, really, what it was was that I was raised in a very gray Britain in the 1950s. We were pummeled during the war. A lot of our cities were wrecked and smashed up and as we came out of that, we were baby boomers there; we didn’t have the candy apple red; we didn’t have the big chrome decals; we didn’t have Elvis. So what we did, we came out ferocious. We came out kicking and spitting and it was a reaction to the gray and depletion of our islands….

I’ve still got a twinkle in me.

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 realized that sometimes I move so fast I don’t even see where I’ve been with any great perspective. I look into the now and slightly into the future, but rarely into the past. Searching and querying and mining the great terrain of life and relationships is where I’m at right now.

I think I’m prone to panic.

Our recent travels have taken this wild whirlwind of a band though many incredible and inspiring places…. Having just begun work on our new album, we thought we’d take time out to raise a little sand and welcome springtime with one more adventure, another celebration of life and song.

Cats know, comin’ out of four, they better be standin’ on it, else they’ll be standin’ in it.

I’m really, really enjoying myself, I seem to have a lot of purpose in my life. I’m enjoying what I’m doing, you know, and people are liking it. So, it’s great, you know.

[On relationship with Jimmy Page] We’re still good friends, we both enjoy a rather dark sense of humour that comes, I think, from being on the wrong side of the tracks for all those wild years.

And you know, life is a constant learning experience. I learn so much with my kids. I read tons of books and study what they’re studying.

If people don’t like me for whatever I do, for being me, then that’s too bad. I don’t want to change to be something that I’m not for other people to like me.

A lot of actresses start out modeling because it’s a great way to sort of get your foot in the door. That’s all it is, though. They open the door, and you have to walk through it.

I’ve been gone for a long time. I really want to give the fans something that they deserve to have. So, I’m working really hard on this. I really want to make it the best work I’ve done so far.

And, you know, politics aside, the success of Sarah Palin and women like her is good for all women – except, of course -those who will end up, you know, like, paying for their own rape ‘kit ‘n’ stuff, But for everybody else, it’s a win-win. Unless you’re a gay woman who wants to marry your partner of 20 years – whatever. But for most women, the success of conservative women is good for all of us. Unless you believe in evolution. You know – actually, I take it back. The whole thing’s a disaster.

If you have physical attractiveness you don’t have to act.

I could live without my phone. And one thing I’d love to do is experience having the freedom that kids had back in the ’80s.

We’re all comedy fans in my family. My parents mainly wouldn’t let me watch stuff that was either annoying to them, or just garbage. My dad wouldn’t let us watch ‘The Flintstones’ if he was home, because he said it was a rip-off of ‘The Honeymooners’. But he would let us stay up really late in the summer and watch old ‘Honeymooners’.

I can do the Chipmunk voice and impressions of Judy Garland, Debbie Reynolds and Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music. I could probably do the whole Von Trapp family.

What good are fans? You can’t eat applause for breakfast. You can’t sleep with it.

I don’t believe that to be fulfilled you have to have kids. What’s the point? I can’t guarantee my child won’t suffer pain because that kid’s going to be in pain at some point in their life. I don’t want to see that. It’s too much.

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.