Quotes by Jimmy Page

Almost the moment he died, they put him in Playboy as one of the greatest drummers, which he was - there's no doubt about it. There's never been anybody since. He's one of the greatest drummers that ever lived.

But to put out a greatest hits on one CD was totally impossible, I just couldn't do it. The best compromise was to put out two CDs - Early Days - which is what it is - and Latter Days.

I always believed in the music we did and that's why it was uncompromising.

I always felt if we were going in to do an album, there should already be a lot of structure already made up so we could get on with that and see what else happened.

I don't think the critics could understand what we were doing.

I think it was that we were really seasoned musicians. We had serious roots that spanned different cultures, obviously the blues.

I was seduced by R&R as a teenager and that's what made me want to play. From then I discovered the blues and country blues, folk musicians, then folk with Arabic and on and on. I was gobbling it all up, then it just came up as the music that you heard.

The funniest thing is I listen on some of those bootleg albums, and I remember on two tours I wasn't playing with one finger at all because I'd done damage to it. One time I'd ripped it on a fence or something, another time I got it crushed. So when I hear a wrong note, I think wait a minute... But, I wouldn't have the nerve to do it now.

We went in and recorded exactly where we were at that point in time. I think because of the quality of musicianship of the band has given it the longevity. I thought the music would endure, I didn't think I would.. I always thought I'd be dead by 30 then dead by 40 and on and on. Now I'm 55 so I didn't even die at 50.