"Everybody thought I was a bit of an eccentric for wanting to be out there looking at the stars, but I still do."

"I had this big thing about guitar harmonies. I wanted to be the first to put proper three-part harmonies onto a record. That was an achievement."

"The guitar has a kind of grit and excitement possessed by nothing else."

"I just want to be able to play as fast as my brain goes, and my brain doesn't go all that fast."

"I despise the Lottery. There's less chance of you becoming a millionaire than there is of getting hit on the head by a passing asteroid."

"A good video can make all the difference."

"Einstein got most of the things right about black holes. I'm not an expert, I must admit."

"At the moment the Queen stuff does sell really well, but there's no guarantee it'll go on forever."

"I'm pretty basic as far as technique is concerned. I don't use many gadgets, and I like the sound my guitar makes, anyway."

"Astronomy's much more fun when you're not an astronomer."

"Each gig should be unique. You're always treading that line between keeping yourself fresh and giving people something they want to hear."

"Mantovani was a great influence on me."

"I go through major crises every few months, but then I have great peaks of belief and creativity. I'm a weird kind of animal."

"I like to go for a walk or swimming or in the garden when I can. It's a busy kind of life, but I guess I'm lucky."

"I spent 20 years of my life building up Queen, and now I'm spending years of my life trying to get away from it."

"There is no way that you can ever really repeat something. I have this great belief that the magic of the moment can never be recaptured."

"I was actually perfectly happy when I had no money, which lasted right up until we had a hit with Killer Queen, in 1974. I never wanted for anything."

"I never took sheet music seriously. I could do better myself just by listening to other people and using my own intuition."

"We do play to our audience. It's very important. You can't create music in a vacuum."

"The biggest emotion in creation is the bridge to optimism."

"From the beginning of Queen there was such momentum that I never had any time to do anything else. My energy was 95% focused on the band."

"The first nine albums there was never a Synthesiser, never any Orchestra. There was never any other player except us on the albums."

"For a time I didn't want to answer any questions about Queen. I'd like to be viewed as something alive and relevant, not some fossil."

"There's nothing I'm embarrassed about."

"The guitar was my weapon, my shield to hide behind."

"Sanctions always hurt the poor, the weak, the children."

"I really thought I was pretty good before I saw Hendrix, and then I thought: Yeah, not so good."

"The Wedding March has a bit of a death march in it."

"Every time I listen to Jeff Beck my whole view of guitar changes radically. He's way, way out, doing things you never expect."

"There are a lot of things in Queen albums that you don't expect; that's why we threw them in."

"There are times when I flick through magazines and think I'm in danger of becoming a prisoner of my own hair."