“There are very few people I can call real, close friends. They’re very, very precious to me.”

So far I’ve been very, very fortunate because it appears that people like to hear the music I like to play. What more fortunate position can a musician be in?

There’s too many good musicians around for the music around for the business to be sagging.

Seeing people’s faces, really getting off on them, makes me incredibly happy. Genuinely.

I guess the solo from ‘Achilles Last Stand’ is in the same tradition as the solo from ‘Stairway to Heaven’ It is on that level to me.

Sometimes, I must admit, I’d like to have a second guitarist onstage with me, but it wouldn’t look right. I’d like to play for another 20 years, but I don’t know. I just can’t see it happening. I don’t know why. It’s a certain foreboding. A funny feeling. Vultures.

The gut-strung guitar, the classical guitar, that is a whole different world on its own. When you think what the guitar can do and what every individual player does with a guitar, everyone has their own identity coming through the guitar.

I don’t feel I have to top myself at all.

I don’t go walking into things blind.

I can listen to all different sorts of music. I don’t really care about The Next Big Thing.

I really don’t like showing people how I play things; it’s a little embarrassing because it always looks so simple to me.

There’s always music that moves me. It doesn’t necessarily mean that it’s within the parenthesis of rock or blues, or whatever. It’s usually far more reaching than that. It can be in many different genres.

I don’t care what critics and other people think.

I’m attracted by the unknown, but I take precautions.

But to put out a greatest hits on one CD was totally impossible, I just couldn’t do it. The best compromise was to put out two CDs – Early Days – which is what it is – and Latter Days.

I’m pretty optimistic about the future of rock… it will be back to composition as in classical music or jazz.

Right from the first time we went to America in 1968, Led Zeppelin was a word-of-mouth thing. You can’t really compare it to how it is today.

A good friend of mine was Lucy Ball. Her mother and my mother were best friends.

Love and mercy that’s what you need tonight. Love and mercy to you and your friends tonight.

A man that is a friend to everyone is an enemy to himself.

Anyone that has a job that takes them away from home, I think, can understand the difficulties in maintaining consistency, not only with your family and those you love but with your friends.

So many of my friends are older, and the people I work with are older. I guess I’ve gotten used to hearing people say, “Oh, you’re so young,” even though I never really agreed with that. Now I get their perspective.

I go to movies, go out with friends, go to car shows. I have a zoo.

I learned that everybody is not your friend. You have to watch who you associate with and surround yourself with positive things and people who want to do something positive.

You don’t have to be good to be Jesus’s friend. You just have to be honest.