If you feel people getting on about what you are doing, it gives you a lift.

A certain death of an artist is overconfidence.

The first real thing I heard was Three O'Clock Blues by B.B. King. That's where it all began for me.

I can't say I feel influenced by today's guitar players.

I didn't want to get attached to one guitar; I didn't want to have an instrument that was irreplaceable.

It all comes down to the density of the wood. Every guitar's different.

I go through about two Fender mediums a night because I don't pick straight down; it's sort of sideways, and it shaves them off.

I don't tend to have a favorite album; I tend to have favorite tracks. There are flaws in every album that spoil it for me.

I got a guitar when I was about 14, for a Christmas present, and went from there.

It's impossible to play a run with as much feeling as a single note. I've never been so much into runs as making single notes cry.

When you start believing you're something special, then you're not going to be striving to move forward.

Knowing when to fight is just as important as knowing how.

[T]he West did not invent slavery

Desperate affairs require desperate remedies.

Ideas are a dime a dozen. People who execute them are not.

In this business, you find the enemy, then go after and destroy him. Everything else is rubbish!

Liberty for all; chains for none.

Dreams show you that you have the power.

I love hard political debate and I love beating somebody on a political point but what I'm more frustrated by is the politics where you play the man not the politics.

I used to be mouthy. It was all to do with being a northerner and from Manchester, which was suddenly a big deal when I was in my 20s. When I read some of the interviews I did back then, I cringe.

Anyone can quit, but it takes a strong, committed person not to quit when times are tough.