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

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.

I go for as much feeling as I can rather than show what I can do up and down the neck. I don't play to show people ability.

Feeling sorry for myself was an art.

A little learning is a dangerous thing, but we must take that risk because a little is as much as our biggest heads can hold.

Educators are in the news, too. Usually that’s bad. I had a favorite college professor. He used to tell us, 'If you make CNN as a teacher, you’re probably going to jail.

Courage is resistance to fear mastery of fear-not absence of fear.

If anyone is really determined to lend you a book, you never can get out of it!

An ignorant friend is worse than a learned foe.

Instead of taking environmentalism away from the left, conservatives condemn it as a counsel of doom.

Films are always pretentious. There's nothing more pretentious than a filmmaker.

You practice and you get better. It's very simple.