“We’re musicians. We make music for a living. It’s that simple. Nothing else matters.”

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.

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.

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 people we love live in the moon. Guiding us on our darkest nights.

Amid the vulnerability lives courage, let your truth be seen.

If you enjoy living, it is not difficult to keep the sense of wonder.

I wouldn’t mind living with someone forever. I don’t really want to get married. I don’t see any reason for it. And yet I’m so romantic that every time I think I meet someone I want to live with them forever and ever.

Because of them I can now live the dream. I am the seed of the free, and I know it. I intend to bear great fruit.

The universe is ours to expand. No more living in the shadows of our potential and the things we desire.

Strike the words “white male” from all your constitutions, and then, with fair sailing, let us sink or swim, live or die, survive or perish together.

The excellence of the Church does not consist in multitude but in purity.