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

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.

The desire for liberty has also made itself felt as struggle against domestic tyranny or arbitrary rule.

I want the municipality to be a helping hand to the man with a desire of sympathy, to help the fallen when it is not in their power to help themselves.

A desire to be observed, considered, esteemed, praised, beloved, and admired by his fellows is one of the earliest as well as the keenest dispositions discovered in the heart of man.

We have no desire to convince anyone that there is only one way by which faith can be acquired.

But the deep desire for peace remained with the American people.

I have known more men destroyed by the desire to have wife and child and to keep them in comfort than I have seen destroyed by drink and harlots.

It was also during my tenure of office that the Japanese Government agreed to the conclusion of a Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and signed it, pursuing a policy in harmony with the avowed desire of the people.

'Tis very certain the desire of life prolongs it.

One of the things that has always motivated me to write is the desire to get it out and look at it in an objective way, so that it doesn't cause me any serious pain by staying inside.

In human history, the desire for revenge and the desire for loot have often been closely associated.

I see Canada as a country torn between a very northern, rather extraordinary, mystical spirit which it fears and its desire to present itself to the world as a Scotch banker.

To be happy at home is the ultimate result of all ambition, the end to which every enterprise and labor tends, and of which every desire prompts the prosecution.

The genius of the economic machine is in its ability to convert these indulgences into profitability. It converts desire into attention, a grip on our eyeballs and eardrums, which in turn can be marketed to advertisers.

I don't know what keeps me going. Sometimes I wonder... I think it's just pure perseverance and wanting to succeed and having that burning desire to always have success.

If history and science have taught us anything, it is that passion and desire are not the same as truth.

It's a great mistake, I think, to put children off with falsehoods and nonsense, when their growing powers of observation and discrimination excite in them a desire to know about things.

Let not a man do what his sense of right bids him not to do, nor desire what it forbids him to desire. This is sufficient. The skillful artist will not alter his measures for the sake of a stupid workman.

I was interested in telescopes and the way they worked because I had an intense desire to see what things looked like, so I learned how to use telescopes and find things in the sky.

When you do portraits professionally it's not a desire, it's for money.

My desire, my passion, was to help moms with practical encouragement.

Sometimes I'm uncomfortable with the level of fame I've got! It all depends on the day and what's going on. I don't desire any more fame. I don't need it.

This life is a hospital in which every patient is possessed with a desire to change his bed.