“Love is a temporary madness, it erupts like volcanoes and then subsides. And when it subsides, you have to make a decision. You have to work out whether your roots have so entwined together that it is inconceivable that you should ever part. Because this is what love is. Love is not breathlessness, it is not excitement, it is not the promulgation of promises of eternal passion, it is not the desire to mate every second minute of the day, it is not lying awake at night imagining that he is kissing every cranny of your body. No, don’t blush, I am telling you some truths. That is just being “in love”, which any fool can do. Love itself is what is left over when being in love has burned away, and this is both an art and a fortunate accident.”

Louis de Bernières

I love collaborating with female artists. All of a sudden one of the barriers is torn down. You immediately get closer to the song when you collaborate with a female. You put four or five guys in a room and something else is going on. There is some kind of hunter, competitive aspect in the air. Like with The Dead Weather, you bring Alison into the room and all of sudden everything is instantly balanced. Who knows? You could chalk that up to sexuality or sociological outlooks or something – and the rudeness comes down by like 90%. Guys will just start ripping and clawing at each other but you put a girl in the room and all of a sudden they’re on best behaviour. It’s interesting.

Eventually something you love is going to be taken away. And then you will fall to the floor crying. And then, however much later, it is finally happening to you: you’re falling to the floor crying thinking, “I am falling to the floor crying,” but there’s an element of the ridiculous to it — you knew it would happen and, even worse, while you’re on the floor crying you look at the place where the wall meets the floor and you realize you didn’t paint it very well.