“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.”

My son, Wolfgang, plays drums, guitars and bass.

Some people think a song without words isn’t a real song. Tell that to Beethoven and he’ll kick your ass!

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.

You know, most people, they want to go to Hollywood. They want to be a star. They want to be a rock star. That thought never entered any of our minds, the Van Halen family.

Actually, if I could deliberately sit down and write a pop hit, all my songs would be pop hits! Let’s put it this way. I play what I like to hear. And sometimes I like to hear something poppy, and sometimes I don’t.

I’m not a drunk anymore, but since they cut out my tongue, I sound drunk.

It’s all about sound. It’s that simple. Wireless is wireless, and it’s digital. Hopefully somewhere along the line somebody will add more ones to the zeros. When digital first started, I swear I could hear the gap between the ones and the zeros.

If I can help a kid discover a liking, or even a passion for music in their life, then that’s a wonderful thing.

Major third complications can be overcome by lots of alcohol.

When Van Halen started out, there was no path to fame. We just played what we liked. Even today it always comes down to the simplicity of rock and roll.

I never dreamt of being a musician for my livelihood. I certainly never would have wanted to be in the business that I’m in, meaning the fame and the glory, the glitter, the rock star, the famous part.

A guitar is just theoretically built wrong. Each string is an interval of fourths, and then the B string is off. Theoretically, that’s not right, all the strings should be off.

It makes me feel kind of weird, but obviously the Man Upstairs gave me something and it touches people, and I’m just so blessed.

It’s always about the music, never about anything else.

A guitar is a very personal extension of the person playing it. You have to be emotionally and spiritually connected to your instrument. I’m very brutal on my instruments, but not all the time.

I don’t really know what inspires me to write the music I do, but usually, the music will set the tone for the lyrics.

I realized that the only way to get into a good college was to be valedictorian or salutatorian. So that was my goal.

What makes saintliness in my view, as distinguished from ordinary goodness, is a certain quality of magnanimity and greatness of soul that brings life within the circle of the heroic.

When God doesn’t change a circumstance, He can change our hearts in knowing that He can change all things for the good.

I swear I love her so much that somedays I can’t quite tell if I’m just a good liar.

You have good days and bad days, and depression’s something that, you know, is always with you.

The news of life is carried via telephone. A baby’s birth, a couple engaged, a tragic car accident on a late night highway – most milestones of the human journey, good or bad, are foreshadowed by the sound of a ringing.

I may do some good before I am dead–be a sort of success as a frightful example of what not to do; and so illustrate a moral story.

When I’m old and gray, I want to have a house by the sea. And paint. With a lot of wonderful chums, good music, and booze around. And a damn good kitchen to cook in.