"When these guitar mags bring up that stuff up and say such and such came up with this and that which is pushing the boundaries, I just say, "let's step back for a minute and admit something: nothing has happened for the last 100 years." And it's okay. It's not a bad thing … We're all working with "tools" that have been in existence for the last 100 years and there hadn't been a new "tool" for a long long time."

"Relax. Be yourself. Play a lot."

"Sounds cool. Looks cool. Feels cool."

"I'll tell you one thing: I will always play the sh** out of my guitar."

"When you think about where guitar playing is going today...: it's going everywhere at the same time."

"I assume most guitar players are like me. They're playing, having fun; then they get a magazine in the mail that says "Shred Is Dead" and they say, "What the Hell?" They throw it away and keep on playing."

"Mozart was a freaky kind of shredder."

"The Squares [his former band] never really fit in. We weren't rock enough. We weren't alternative enough. We weren't new wave enough and we weren't punk enough. Maybe we just weren't the right people for the band."

"I think it's quite painfully obvious when someone's practicing through an amp, as opposed to someone who's really laying down some stuff that just happens to be fast."

"18th September, 1970; Jimi Hendrix dies. I'm still on the football team when I get the news. So I take my helmet off and confront the coach to tell him I'm quitting the team. In a moment of brilliance he gives me one look and says "OK"."

"Eee-nee-mee-nee-my-nee-moe"

"I can embarrass myself very easily on guitar. It's funny because people say to me I can play anything; I'm God on the guitar. But I could make a big list of everything I can't play... I'm grateful that people don't notice that."

"When you hear an instrumental song someone is singing over, you know right away it's wrong."

"I've always spent a lot of time on my records with what I think were unique rhythmic approaches … but no one ever writes about your rhythm playing"

"My first [guitar] lessons lasted two weeks and it was "Jingle Bells." It didn't make any sense at all. I wanted to know how to play like Hendrix..."

"I write the songs first and in most cases teach myself the technique second."

"Song ideas have come to me in the middle of interviews, in the shower, or while I'm writing another song."

"My inspirations don't come from outer space, they just come to me. I have no idea why they come when they do."

"I'm ready to take the heat."

"It really sucks when music is so perfect you just don't need to hear it anymore."

"Don't waste the breath to save your face, When you have done your best, And even more is asked of you, Let fate decide the rest."

"There are times when you get hit upon, Try hard but you cannot give. Other times you'd gladly part, With what you need to live"

"But never give your love, my friend, Unto a foolish heart"

"There are things you can replace, and others you cannot. The time has come to weigh those things, this space is getting hot."

"Ain't nobody messin' with you but you"

"While you were gone, these spaces filled with darkness. The obvious was hidden. With nothing to believe in. The compass always points to Terrapin."

"Inspiration, move me brightly, light the song with sense and color, hold away despair"

"The storyteller makes no choice, soon you will not hear his voice, his job is to shed light, and not to master"

"Let my inspiration flow, in token lines suggesting rhythm, that will not forsake me, till my tale is told and done"

"Crippled but free, I was blind all the time I was learning to see."

"In another time's forgotten space, your eyes looked through your mother's face, Wildflower seed on the sand and stone, may the four winds blow you safely home. Roll away ... the dew"

"I won't slave for beggar's pay, likewise gold and jewels, but I would slave to learn the way, to sink your ship of fools."

"Once in a while, you get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if you look at it right."

"I like your smile but I ain't your type, Don't shake the tree when the fruit ain't ripe"

"Sometimes we live no particular way but our own"

"Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world, but the heart has its beaches, its homeland, and thoughts of its own. Wake now, discover that you are the song that the morning brings, but the heart has its seasons its evenings, and songs of its own"

"It seems like all this life was just a dream"

"Sometimes the light's all shining on me, Other times I can barely see, Lately it occurs to me, What a long strange trip it's been..."

"In the secret space of dreams, Where I dreaming lay amazed, When the secrets all are told, And the petals all unfold. When there was no dream of mine, You dreamed of me"

"Such a long, long time to be gone, and a short time to be here."

"Lovers come and go, the river roll, roll, roll."

"Let there be songs to fill the air."

"You who choose to lead must follow, But if you fall, you fall alone, If you should stand then who's to guide you? If I knew the way I would take you home"

"There is a road, no simple highway, between the dawn and the dark of night. And if you go, no one may follow. That path is for your steps alone."

"Trouble with you is The trouble with me Got two good eyes But you still don't see Come round the bend You know it's the end The fireman screams and The engine just gleams"

"Trouble ahead. A lady in red. Take my advice. You'd be better off dead!"

"Trouble ahead, Trouble behind, and you know that notion just crossed my mind"

"See here how everything leads up to this day. And it's just like any other day that's ever been. Sun going up and then, the sun, it going down. Shine through my window, and my friends they come around."

"Nothing's for certain, It could always go wrong, Come in when it's raining, Go on out when it's gone, We could have us a high time, Living the good life, Well I know"

"In the timbers of Fennario, the wolves are running round. The winter was so hard and cold, froze ten feet 'neath the ground...I sat down to my supper, 'twas a bottle of red whisky. I said my prayers and went to bed, that's the last they saw of me..."