I'm also getting an Ovation Legend, because I like them so much.

There happened to be guitar classes at the college, and there was a guitar teacher there with whom I used to play. In addition, I also would go out into country schools and teach little kids basic guitar and singing a few times a week.

Each song has its own secret that's different from another song, and each has its own life. Sometimes it has to be teased out, whereas other times it might come fast. There are no laws about songwriting or producing. It depends on what you're doing, not just who you're doing.

I don't like definitions, but if there is a definition of freedom, it would be when you have control over your reality to transform it, to change it, rather than having it imposed upon you. You can't really ask for more than.

My idea of heaven is a place where the Tyne meets the Delta, where folk music meets the blues.

I just want to be able to play and make people feel good with what I do. When you're thinking that way, anything can happen. And, usually, what happens is good.

The music just tends to be a vehicle for that poetry.

While I was into many different types of music, and played with many different local groups, I really didn't have a band to call my own until Dire Straits was formed in 1977.

I love Gibsons, and Nationals, too. There's something magical about them.

What I always try to do is to respond to the song; I've always rebelled against theory.

I was into playing American music, especially the blues.

Every guitar I own gets used and has its purpose.

After a while, though, the group just wasn't a good vehicle for the songs I'd written.

While listening, to things like western swing, for instance, I'd work something out in my head, then play it on my National; not the same song, but one that captured the feeling of the original tune.

I'm not a collector, however, and I have no desire to own 50 or 60 guitars.

We used to play in a theater club in London called The King's Head. When the theater let nut, around 10:00 P.M., we'd be ready to go and really get it on for about an hour or so.

I even played bass for a while. Besides playing electric guitar, I'd also get asked to play some acoustic stuff. But, since I didn't have an acoustic guitar at the time, I used to borrow one from a friend so I could play folk joints.

I'm also getting an Ovation Legend, because I like them so much.

For me, songwriting is really where it's at. I turn to use the guitar just to help me write the songs. That's it. As a result, my guitar playing suffers pretty horribly.

I actually spend as much time listening to new music as to old. Probably more. I just try to get something out of it all.

I don't know that I read more than the average person. I don't think I do very much. I tend to read more when I'm on holiday. That's when I can go through books like you wouldn't believe. I read a bit of everything, but the novel has always been very important to me.

I don't know whether your heart ever necessarily changes, but time changes the way that you perceive the world. And you just hope it gives you more empathy and all those other things.

I like to buy records for people, make a present of the music.

I still enjoy playing some of those early Straits songs, and I'm proud of what we did, and certainly we had some great times. It's what we all wanted when we were kids. But you've got to have the resilience to ride that thing, to pick up that ball and run with it. Because you will keep picking it up and keep running.

If you feel that you're not getting enough out of a song, change the instrument - go from an acoustic to an electric or vice versa, or try an open tuning. Do something to shake it up.

Instead of receding, the past actually becomes more important. That's what will happen to you. It sounds unlikely, but the past actually changes complexion as you get older.

The 'music industry' is not a term I use. I tend to concentrate on music, and the music business is something different.

Resolve to be thyself: and know that he who finds himself, loses his misery.

She wore far too much rouge last night and not quite enough clothes. That is always a sign of despair in a woman.

My plans never progressed as far as a clear desire for a family.

If I get some Bruce Lee nun-chucks that he actually used in a movie, those are going in the case. Those will never be used. Those will never be touched.

For me, the game starts with starting pitching.

When the 'Guardian' is commissioning writers to write obituary pieces about you and your career... it doesn't get much nastier than that. And you've just got to go, 'It doesn't actually matter.'

If we win by losing ourselves, by losing what we were fighting for, then we never really win.

Baghdad is altogether built of chrome-yellow kiln-dried bricks.

I was disappointed, not because we had lost the war but because our people had allowed it to go on for so many years, instead of heeding the few voices of protest against all that mass insanity and slaughter.

Mom spoke to us in Swiss when we were little.

On September 11 2001, America felt its vulnerability even to threats that gather on the other side of the Earth. We resolved then, and we are resolved today, to confront every threat from any source that could bring sudden terror and suffering to America.

Again, one of the problems I have with television, as I mentioned before, is it's trivial in many ways, and I think that a lot of folks out there are looking for new metaphors and new ways of thinking about things.

I was a Scout years ago, before the movement started, when my father took me fishing, camping and hunting. Then I was sorry that more girls could not have what I had. When I learned of the movement, I thought, here is what I always wanted other girls to have.

Vatican II was a force that seized the mind of the Roman Catholic Church and carried it across centuries from the 13th to the 20th.

Reducing consumption is imperative but its pointless to cut out meat and cars while having lots of children.

It goes back to all of us wanting to be in Hollywood. We're all dying to win an Oscar.

In most horror films, you don't really get to understand why this character is the way he is.

Our men and women in uniform deserve the best intelligence possible to help them protect America.

Contentment and indeed usefulness comes as the infallible result of great acceptances great humilities of not trying to make ourselves this or that but of surrendering ourselves to the fullness of life of letting life flow through us.

He who rejects change is the architect of decay. The only human institution which rejects progress is the cemetery.

A perfect example of minority rule is a baby in the house.

You always dream of going to the Olympics and winning gold. I've learned over the years that there are lots of gold medals, but certain stories stick out and make a difference.