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

Practice. I used to sit on the edge of my bed with a six-pack of Tuborg. My brother would go out to party and get laid, come home at 3am., and I would still be playing with myself.

The one thing I do have is good ears. I don’t mean perfect pitch, but ears for picking things up. I developed my ear through piano theory, but I never had a guitar lesson in my life, except from Eric Clapton off of records.

I’m just a normal schmo like anyone else.

I’ve had a hip replacement, I’ve beaten cancer, I had my hand operation, and I stopped drinking. Something inside of me just went, ‘I’m done.’

Everything comes to me while I’m sitting on the pot.

I grew up on a lot of early Beatles, DC5, Cream, Clapton, Page, Beck and Hendrix.

Nirvana was huge, but it didn’t appeal to everyone.

Best believe that needle hurt you Best to see these true colors Than follow one of your false virtues A little secret to make you think: Why is the crazy stuff we never say, poetry in ink?

The name Van Halen, the family legacy, is going to go on long after I’m gone.

The piano is a universal instrument. If you start there, learn your theory and how to read, you can go on to any other instrument.

I boil the strings so they stretch.

There are really three parts to the creative process. First there is inspiration, then there is the execution, and finally there is the release.

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.

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.

There is nothing better than being in a classroom with really, really brilliant students, and opening up new worlds to them. That’s what I love doing.

To be kind is more important than to be right. Many times, what people need is not a brilliant mind that speaks but a special heart that listens.

To be kind is more important than to be right. Many times, what people need is not a brilliant mind that speaks but a special heart that listens.

Knowing what you don’t know is more useful than being brilliant.

You have to sing every day so you can build up to being, you know, Amazingly Brilliant.

Without love, deeds, even the most brilliant, count as nothing.

All living creatures are sparks from the radiation of God’s brilliance, emerging from God like the rays of the sun.

Our true nature is like a precious jewel: although it may be temporarily buried in mud, it remains completely brilliant and unaffected. We simply have to uncover it.