Eric Clapton Quotations

I am, and always will be, a blues guitarist.

There's a desire in me to express something - to match what I hear in my head.

When all the original blues guys are gone, you start to realize that someone has to tend to the tradition. I recognize that I have some responsibility to keep the music alive, and it's a pretty honorable position to be in.

I sought my father in the world of the black musician, because it contained wisdom, experience, sadness and loneliness. I was not ever interested in the music of boys. From my youngest years, I was interested in the music of men.

I'd love to knock an audience cold with one note, but what do you do for the rest of the evening?

I listened to King Oliver and I listened to Louis Armstrong, Jelly Roll Morton, Thelonious Monk, Charles Mingus, John Coltrane, Archie Shepp... I listened to everything I could that came from that place that they call the blues but, in formality, isn't necessarily the blues.

One of the most beneficial things I've ever learned is how to keep my mouth shut.

Well, I think part of my gift, or if I have one, is that I love listening.

Risk is trying to control something you are powerless over.

One summer I remember, I got exposed to Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly and Buddy Holly was a very very big, made a very big impression on me. Because of a lot of things, you know, the way he looked and his charisma.

Yeah, and I went straight into a fantasy world. Just stepped straight into the abyss. You know, I was gone and kids used to walk past my front room, cause I lived on the green.

I like solitude. I like the anomalous life. I like a quiet life.

But I did go to music really early on, even when I was 4 or 5, I was responding to music probably in ways other kids were not.

I've got the god given talent or the god given opportunity better put, to let that out in a harmless way you know, and I don't know what it does to you, I don't really know.

My original interests and intentions in guitar playing were primarily created on quality of tone, for instance, the way the instrument could be made to echo or simulate the human voice.

Very much like that, and very much a loner, do you know and I didn't fit really into sport or all kind of group activities as a kid, I couldn't find a niche. And music was not really part of the kind of village curriculum it would, you know.

Music became a healer for me. And I learned to listen with all my being. I found that it could wipe away all fear and confusion...

I mean, it didn't matter to me that there were people, it didn't matter that I was shy Just the sound was so captivating that it helped me to get rid of those inhibitions.

Although they can do it all the time, you know, they're far better than me, on a musically, on a theoretical music level. You know, they're out of my league.

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.

They looked great, you know the drawings of the guys playing looked great and bits of string around their necks. So it didn't seem to be that difficult a thing to do, or that inaccessible.

The toughest thing about being a celebrity, I suppose, is being polite when I don't want to be.

The first guitar I ever had was a gut-string Spanish guitar, and I couldn't really get the hang of it. I was only 13, and I talked my grandparents into buying it for me. I tried and tried and tried, but got nowhere with it.

'My Father's Eyes' is very personal. I realized that the closest I ever came to looking in my father's eyes was when I looked into my son's eyes.

But the guitar, when you think about it, is the most versatile, really. I mean you can pick it up and take it with you wherever you go.

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

I used to do crazy things that people would bail me out of, and I'm just grateful that I survived. But the music got very lost; I didn't know where I was going, and I didn't really care. I was more into just having a good time, and I think it showed.

I mean, the sound of an amplified guitar in a room full of people was so hypnotic and addictive to me, that I could cross any kind of border to get on there.

It's very dependent on your state of mind. And your emotional state as well. And a lot of it comes pouring out, you don't really have that much control with it.

Leave bands, go back to obscurity if I choose to, without a great sense of loss of security because it's all been based on the fact that I did it on my own or was doing, enjoying doing it on my own in the first place.

The blues are what I've turned to, what has given me inspiration and relief in all the trials of my life.

Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying around, I'd rather lie around. No contest.

The point of being at home is to be with my family as much as possible.

I think everybody has their own way of looking at their lives as some kind of pilgrimage. Some people will see their role as a pilgrim in terms of setting up a fine family, or establishing a business inheritance. Everyone's got their own definition.

It was stumbling on to really the bible of the blues, you know, and a very powerful drug to be introduced to us and I absorbed it totally, and it changed my complete outlook on music.

I don't have half the nerves there that I have anywhere else.

I often enjoy singing in an acoustic setting more than an amplified one.

Yeah, it is, because it's a real discovery of your inner resources, you know. That's what my character is all about and what my playing is all about. But to get up there and just go inside and draw out something that makes you feel good first and foremost.

I don't know if I believe in luck. I think I'm very fortunate.

I wish I could write easily. I'm one of those guys who's visited by the muse when things are dire.

In playing, I suppose my greatest gift was to express the way I felt or the willingness to express myself.

To sing in a lower key is harder work. You have to use your diaphragm more.

I just managed to convince my grandmother that it was a worth while that was something to do, you know, and when I did finally get the guitar, it didn't seem that difficult to me, to be able to make a good noise out of it.

This moment in time, on this tour, you know, I'm discovering a lot of new things. And to be 45 and doing that, it's a mixture of pleasure and pain, I can assure you.

I just like the company of beautiful women. I have a weakness in that department.

A British pressing with a compilation of the best stuff really, I mean actually not only that but, these were all kind of semi hits for the people on it in America.

I feel a real need to observe a level of propriety in what I'm handing out. Instead of me just venting or spilling my guts, I've got to consider how it's going to affect people. How it's going to affect me, as well. Because it's like a cycle.

I remember when I thought of singing as the bit that went between the guitar playing - something I couldn't wait to get out of the way. Singing was originally like a chore that I didn't really enjoy.

I think I deliberately sold out a couple of times. I picked the songs that I thought would do well in the marketplace, even though I didn't really love the song.

Yeah, I wanted to know where they got it from, what it was all about, you know, and it seemed to strike something in me that was you know rearing it's head and I still don't know what that is.

Oh yeah, I mean, it wasn't a very good guitar, most good guitars have got thrust rods in the necks that you can adjust or that'll keep them in shape, you know keep them straight. This one just, well it turned into a bow and arrow after a couple of months.

I grew up playing in clubs - that's my spiritual stomping ground.

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

The first band I identified with from Chicago was the Muddy Waters band.

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 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.

I tried when I was 13, when my grandparents gave me an acoustic guitar, and I tried for a year. It hurt so much to play. I mean, the fingertips hurt so much, I gave up.

It was a mystery to me, how the tuning was, or the style seemed to come out of nowhere, it obviously had roots in America going way back, there was nothing like it for me I'd ever seen before.

It's taken me to be an older guy, an old man, to have an old man's voice. Because I only liked old men's voices. As a kid, I didn't like pip-squeaked singers.

An obsession is where something will not leave your mind.

From the beginning, I knew intuitively that if nothing else, music was safe, and that nobody could tell me anything about it. Music didn't need a middleman, whereas all the other things in school needed some kind of explanation.

I remember hearing Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Big Bill Broonzy, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and not really knowing anything about the geography or the culture of the music. But for some reason it did something to me - it resonated.

The first one was quite cheap, but that was expensive for us. For my folks to buy on the Never Never. It was quite, you know, a rare object to have and I gained quite a lot of status by having this.

Musically, Nathan is in the Top 3 as a bassist.

Obviously, I am not going to say which one it is, but it is a guitar that has been around my house for years and I've picked it up in times of great stress like a comfort blanket,

When you came knocking on the door this morning I was quite happy playing the guitar, for fun, I mean and not practicing and I'll always be that way.

Let's make the best of the situation / Before I finally go insane. / Please don't say we'll never find a way / And tell me all my love's in vain.

I felt it was time to be a little charitable, in terms of friendships and healing up old wounds,

I feel wonderful because I see / The love light in your eyes. / And the wonder of it all / Is that you just don't realize how much I love you.

He was sitting in his dressing room with his manager, ... There was something about that scene. This is it. This is what B.B. does. I know that's the way he wants it, but that's not what I wanted.

I always liked Tulsa music for its no-compromise attitude, as if the musicians were making it just for themselves, without regard to what other people would think of it.

Nathan is probably the closest friend I have in the music world. He's the most supportive and caring musician I've met.

I think I probably am more influenced by the overall groove of the track, not even the song. If we pinpoint the songs (by others) I've done on this album, they were really more about the overall feel of the record than the lyrics. I mean, sometimes I don't even know what people are saying when they sing. When I was younger, it was phonetic; I liked the sound of the words much more so than the words.

will write about every aspect of his personal and musical odyssey, addressing everything that is known as well as much that is not.

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.

What gives him the right to do that? ... I ask myself if musicians should conduct themselves like politicians. They are only musicians. Where do they get the right to talk like that?

Thanks for waiting all these years, ... We're going to play every song we know.

I know that when I was a full-blown, practicing alcoholic, everyone used to walk around me on eggshells,

I like her music. I think it's good. And well, I think she's pretty ... even though she's older than my mom and dad. And gosh, my dad is like 30.

I wanted to make a studio album without quite knowing what it was going to be,

It's very hard, so I try and make it as engaging as it can be. But you have to face the fact that, no matter how good it is, you can only hold their attention for a little while.

I just think I'm OK, ... The object of most of my work has been to raise it above my standard. And so, you know, I never think I'll be as good as the people I look up to.

You know, that's it, there's no turning back because what it's made of is so fine. It's like crystal, you know, it's like the purest crystal.

It's been so long since I've been around something from somebody else that's inspired me. For the last 20 years, it's been up to me to inspire me.

For me, it's about the music. I'm just the messenger, and I hope to do it as long as I live.

It's a humbling thing, playing for your kids, because they're entertained for only so long. Then, they find something else they want to do,

It's not a pretence. I will have to work to support the way we live.

My driving philosophy about making music is that you can reduce it all down to one note if that note is played with the right kind of sincerity.

My selective memory of what drinking was like told me that standing at the bar in a pub, on a summer's evening with a long, tall glass of lager and lime was heaven, and I chose not to remember the nights on which I had sat with a bottle of vodka, a gram of coke and a shotgun, contemplating suicide.

Every time you pick up your guitar to play, play as if it's the last time.

All along this path I tread, my heart betrays my weary head, with nothing but my love to save, from the cradle to the grave...

It's been up to me to inspire me.

For me there is something primitively soothing about this music, and it went straight to my nervous system, making me feel ten feet tall.

Music survives everything, and like God, it is always present. It needs no help, and suffers no hindrance.

There are people these days who can do things on the guitar which are beyond my reach. There's one guy who plays with Queen who can do things I would dream of doing. I sincerely mean that.

... whatever your standing in life, the most important thing is behaving in ways that help other people. It's the same with music. I am a servant of the music ... and if I get caught up in ego, I'll lose everything .. it'll burn and that's a guarantee ...

Would you know my name, if I saw you in Heaven?

Having lovers and friends is all good and fine But I don't like yours and you don't like mine.

I found my God in music and the arts, with writers like Hermann Hesse, and musicians like Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and Little Walter. In some way, in some form, my God was always there, but now I have learned to talk to him.

I admire Eddie Van Halen and Steve Lukather, but they might blow me away quite easily if we were to jam together.