“If you have a great-sounding guitar that’s a quality instrument and a good amp, and you know how to make the guitar talk, that’s the key. It starts with the guitar and knowing what it should sound and feel like.”

There’s a plaque on our wall that says we’ve sold over 65 million albums, and I don’t feel I’ve accomplished anything. I feel like I’m just getting started.

Music is for people. The word ‘pop’ is simply short for popular. It means that people like it. I’m just a normal jerk who happens to make music. As long as my brain and fingers work, I’m cool.

I just consider myself slightly left-of-center. I’m not your average bear. I – what’s the word? I’m not – normal.

Bass is for people who can’t play guitar.

I’ll be making music ’til the day I die. I’ve done all kinds of stuff, and more is coming.

Music kept me off the streets and out of trouble and gave me something that was mine that no one could take away from me.

I’ll always leave the same set of strings on my guitars when I’m recording. If I break one I’ll just replace it instead of putting on a whole new set of strings.

I never took guitar lessons. I took classical piano lessons from the age of six when we lived in Holland.

Eventually you’ll take the phrases and rhythm patterns you’ve copped and begin to put your own mark on them.

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.

Maybe happiness is this: not feeling like you should be elsewhere, doing something else, being someone else.

My feeling is, quite simply, that if there is a God, He has done such a bad job that he isn’t worth discussing.

I’m so despondent about everything. Everything I try goes totally wrong. There’s no escape from this hole here. I feel drained. So far, I still haven’t found a real purpose in life. Sometimes, I’m afraid to get out of bed in the morning. There’s nothing to get up for.

I feel like I can control my own body as if I have a thermostat that I can adjust when I need to.

Well, I feel that we should always put a little art into what we do. It’s better that way.

Home is where you feel at home. I’m still looking.

No; I did not hate him. The word is too weak. There is no word in the language strong enough to describe my feelings. I can say only that I knew the gnawing of a desire for vengeance on him that was a pain in itself and that exceeded all the bounds of language.

The word is too weak. There is no word in the language strong enough to describe my feelings.