Popular Quotes Through Time

I'm not a big fan of lead vocalists, people who sing but don't play. I never wanted to be in a band where the guy who was up front just sang. I've always thought it better when one of the musicians sings, like Steve Winwood.

I never met Johnny Rotten, and I didn't want to meet Johnny Rotten.

I did play a lot of fingerstyle when I first started playing. I could never really find the right combination of flatpick or fingerpick, so playing fingerstyle is really the easiest way - though it's quite strenuous on the fingertips.

It is painful to relive things that have caused emotional crises or whatever and find ways to express that musically.

When you're onstage with an electric band going through a massive P.A. system, it's very artificial. You can't really hear your own voice as it comes out of your mouth.

My dedication to my music has driven everyone away. I've had girlfriends, but I always end up on my own. I don't particularly like it, but I don't see a way 'round it.

We didn't really have a band with Cream. We rarely played as an ensemble; we were three virtuosos, all of us soloing all the time.

Do we have any foreigners in the audience tonight? If so, please put up your hands. So where are you? Well, wherever you are, I think you should all just leave. Not just leave the hall, leave our country. I don't want you here, in the room or in my country. Stop Britain from becoming a black colony. Get the foreigners out. Get the w*gs out. Get the c**ns out. Keep Britain white. Listen to me, man! I think we should send them all back.

I was so ashamed of who I was, a kind of semi-racist, which didn't make sense.

I thought that young bands like Oasis had learned from our mistakes. Instead, they are irresponsible and arrogant. They act like hooligans. They are a load of shit to me.

When he first came to England, you know English people have a very big thing towards a spade. They really love that magic thing, the sexual thing. They all fall for that sort of thing. Everybody and his brother in England still sort of think that spades have big dicks. And Jimi came over and exploited that to the limit, the fucking tee. Everybody fell for it. Shit. I fell for it. After a while I began to suspect it.

Music will always find its way to us, with or without business, politics, religion, or any other bullshit attached. Music survives everything, and like God, it is always present. It needs no help, and suffers no hindrance.

Musically I was fed up with the virtuoso thing. Our gigs had become nothing more than an excuse for us to show off as individuals, and any sense of unity we might have had when we started seemed to have gone out the window.

I had no idea how to do that, because I was either above or below everybody. I was either towering above as Clapton the guitar virtuoso, or cringing on the floor, because if you took away my guitar and my musical career, then I was nothing.

I have records in gold, in platinum, I have two Oscars, I have Grammys and so on.

I grew up in a really small town with not a lot of money, and I liked singing, but it was just something that was a hobby.

When a girl loves her shoes, she always makes them fit.

My voice was the conductor of my life.

It's not hard to do a show; it's hard to cancel a show.

Do you believe me if I tell you that even though I've traveled the world, I didn't really see anything? Strange, isn't it? Sometimes, we call that the price to pay.