“Every song is like a kid. How can you have that many kids and have a favorite? Which one do I like to hang most with?”

The stainless-steel frets were a major breakthrough, because of the amount of playing and bending that I do. I have to get my guitars refretted every couple of months.

Rock stars come and go. Musicians play until they die.

I think Clapton is brilliant. He’s the only one who moved me. The only one who made me want to play the guitar.

Holdsworth is so damned good that I can’t cop anything. I can’t understand what he’s doing. I’ve got to do this [does two-hand tapping], whereas he’ll do it with one hand.

It’s always a Catch-22 situation. They hate you if you’re the same, and they hate you if you’re different.

I have selective hearing.

I’m writing, and just doing the same thing I always do.

A good producer brings out the best in the artist he’s working with. You shouldn’t be able to listen to something and say, ‘So-and-so produced this album.

You only have 12 notes. Do what you want with them.

I’m the one in the band that said I’m not going on tour unless we do a record.

Cancer is like a cockroach. It just comes back stronger. I’m tearing apart the immune system of the cockroach and seeing how it ticks. I’ve opened up my own pathology center.

When I was growing up and listening to bands like the Dave Clark Five, the groove was what initially got me going. I really like that funky, heavy groove.

I was trying to take the band in a direction that I thought was appropriate, and Roth was trying to take the band in more of a Las Vegas direction. And there he is.

I’m just a guitarist in a kick-ass rock and roll band. What more could I ask for?

I was so used to doing old blues licks with the first three fingers. When I started using my pinky and finding more spread things, that’s when I started getting my own style.

To hell with the rules. If it sounds right, then it is.

I think the best thing a parent can do, when raising a child, is simply get out of their way.

You can have the best vaccines for a woman or her child, but if you can’t get her to come and get them then they won’t work.

I was the kid who never won the races. I never jumped the highest. I wasn’t on the list of the high-achieving.

It is still just unbelievable to us that diarrhea is one of the leading causes of child deaths in the world.

I think every family should have a dog; it is like having a perpetual baby; it is the plaything and crony of the whole house. It keeps them all young.

You know, I have seven children, so I guess I know some things about life.

Having children made us look differently at all these things that we take for granted, like taking your child to get a vaccine against measles or polio.

The older you get, the more you learn to see what you’ve been taught to see. When you’re a kid, you see what’s there.