Mantovani was a great influence on me.

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.

The most profound, tangible influence in my life has been my wife, Monique. I don't know that I would even be alive were it not for her, and I certainly would not be the person that I am today.

I don't know how much influence we really had, because we never put our pictures on the albums or anything and we never really promoted the Talking Heads connection, because we wanted to keep it separate from Talking Heads.

My life would have been different without Paul Stanley or Ace Frehley. They would have to be the greatest on my list as an influence to my life at 11 years old.

Every war results from the struggle for markets and spheres of influence, and every war is sold to the public by professional liars and totally sincere religious maniacs, as a Holy Crusade to save God and Goodness from Satan and Evil.

I was on Oprah's show recently talking about the people who impacted me the most. One was a teacher and one was my soccer coach. I didn't even go into my family, who had the most influence.

The most hateful human misfortune is for a wise man to have no influence.

There are a couple of teachers I have had without whose influence I would not be as happy with who I am.

It's definitely an influence, I mean how can you not say you are influenced to play rock.

When I started out, I preferred to watch my films without music, as its presence tends to mask the underlying pace of the film. I felt I could feel the rhythm of the film better without music to influence me.