I spent 20 years of my life building up Queen, and now I'm spending years of my life trying to get away from it.

For a time I didn't want to answer any questions about Queen. I'd like to be viewed as something alive and relevant, not some fossil.

There are times when I flick through magazines and think I'm in danger of becoming a prisoner of my own hair.

The guitar was my weapon, my shield to hide behind.

Every time I listen to Jeff Beck my whole view of guitar changes radically. He's way, way out, doing things you never expect.

There's nothing I'm embarrassed about.

Mantovani was a great influence on me.

Each gig should be unique. You're always treading that line between keeping yourself fresh and giving people something they want to hear.

I don't think anybody comes close to The Beatles, including Oasis.

A good video can make all the difference.

There are a lot of things in Queen albums that you don't expect; that's why we threw them in.

The first nine albums there was never a Synthesiser, never any Orchestra. There was never any other player except us on the albums.

Astronomy's much more fun when you're not an astronomer.

I don't surf the net in general. I have someone do it for me instead, because I find it sluggish.

I spent 20 years of my life building up Queen, and now I'm spending years of my life trying to get away from it.

I had this big thing about guitar harmonies. I wanted to be the first to put proper three-part harmonies onto a record. That was an achievement.

I really thought I was pretty good before I saw Hendrix, and then I thought: Yeah, not so good.

I was actually perfectly happy when I had no money, which lasted right up until we had a hit with Killer Queen, in 1974. I never wanted for anything.

At the moment the Queen stuff does sell really well, but there's no guarantee it'll go on forever.

Sanctions always hurt the poor, the weak, the children.

Einstein got most of the things right about black holes. I'm not an expert, I must admit.

The biggest emotion in creation is the bridge to optimism.

There is no way that you can ever really repeat something. I have this great belief that the magic of the moment can never be recaptured.

Everybody thought I was a bit of an eccentric for wanting to be out there looking at the stars, but I still do.

I just want to be able to play as fast as my brain goes, and my brain doesn't go all that fast.

I despise the Lottery. There's less chance of you becoming a millionaire than there is of getting hit on the head by a passing asteroid.

I never took sheet music seriously. I could do better myself just by listening to other people and using my own intuition.

From the beginning of Queen there was such momentum that I never had any time to do anything else. My energy was 95% focused on the band.

The Wedding March has a bit of a death march in it.

I'm pretty basic as far as technique is concerned. I don't use many gadgets, and I like the sound my guitar makes, anyway.

We do play to our audience. It's very important. You can't create music in a vacuum.

I go through major crises every few months, but then I have great peaks of belief and creativity. I'm a weird kind of animal.

The guitar has a kind of grit and excitement possessed by nothing else.

I like to go for a walk or swimming or in the garden when I can. It's a busy kind of life, but I guess I'm lucky.

I think music is about our internal life. It's part of the way people touch each other. That's very precious to me. And astronomy is, in a sense, the very opposite thing. Instead of looking inwards, you are looking out, to things beyond our grasp.

I'm not a person for sitting on beaches. What would I do?

In print, people can do anything to you. Everything you do is picked apart. People love it; they're waiting for you to make a mistake.

The music itself is very challenging, so I've never really felt the lack of stimulation. I love to be creating; I love to be making things and solving problems, I suppose, and when I'm not, then I'm not an incredibly good person to be around. If I'm not busy, then I think I would be disaster. That's just the way things are.

The guitar was my weapon my shield to hide behind.

There are times when I flick through magazines and think Im in danger of becoming a prisoner of my own hair.

We must support initiatives that provide clear, concrete measures and milestones that our troops need for defeating the insurgency, building up Iraqi security forces, and handing over Iraq to the Iraqi people.

In other words, I have no truck for anyone who goes out and does an eclectic building.

We believe that peace is not just signed papers, but rather a contract between generations for the building of a more promising and less threatening future.

Belief in oneself is one of the most important bricks in building any successful venture.

Living at risk is jumping off the cliff and building your wings on the way down.

When I say artist I mean the man who is building things - creating molding the earth - whether it be the plains of the west - or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush - some with a shovel - some choose a pen.

Nature is my manifestation of God. I go to nature every day for inspiration in the day's work. I follow in building the principles which nature has used in its domain.

So I rang up a local building firm, I said 'I want a skip outside my house.' He said 'I'm not stopping you.'

We have a group of friends of the museum who try to raise, if they can, periodically something to help us. Of course, the main thing about a building like this is its upkeep. It needs central heating and it needs central air conditioning.