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

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.

When you use music to worship you are not attempting to entertain.

Pop music, disco music, and heavy metal music is about shutting out the tensions of life, putting it away.

When I did the record, I was coming off a time when my contract had been sold and the music industry had changed a lot. I didn't understand how to make records for big labels. I was waiting for a new kind of record label to emerge.

You've got to realize. In the western world, regardless of what color you are, what title the music is, it's all played by the same notes.

Don't make music for some vast, unseen audience or market or ratings share or even for something as tangible as money. Though it's crucial to make a living, that shouldn't be your inspiration. Do it for yourself.

Whether I'm doing music or I'm walking down the street or I'm in a record store buying a record or I walk into a comic store and I'm buying comics or having a drink with my friends, it's the same me.

When rock came along the lyrics and melodies became less important and it bothered me to think that perhaps they might not regain the value they have to music - they are music.

I want to promote poetry to the point where you got all the baldhead kids running around doing poetry, getting the music out of the way and having only words, the spoken word, and then see what happens.

There is no music that can't be used politically, but the motives behind the creation of that music can be non-political.