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

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.

I had given up the guitar between '75 and '78. I completely lost interest. I was sick of hearing other guitar players and I was tired of my tunes.

Every time the guys were knocked out by my guitar playing and the girls were knocked out by the type of songs I did. That set us apart from the average blues band.

I play piano and guitar. Acoustic guitar. I tried studying classical guitar when I was 16 but it got really hard. I could never play a lead to save my life.

Oh yeah, I mean, it wasn't a very good guitar, most good guitars have got thrust rods in the necks that you can adjust or that'll keep them in shape, you know keep them straight. This one just, well it turned into a bow and arrow after a couple of months.

In OK Computer, the guitar was already moving towards a tone generator as well as a riff generator.

Cool things happen. Ace's guitar flies through space, goes through a hole, and blows up. I throw drumsticks and they come flying at you.

Yes, I took up the guitar when I was about 14 or 15, in high school.

I keep a guitar around while writing and will improvise music. I do this for several reasons, such as that it's fun, and sometimes it helps me with the meter.

I like to play guitar, jam out, play the blues, go watch movies. I love movies.