Brian May Quotes

Amazing uke playing to be relished.

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

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

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

My mum says I wanted to be a surgeon, but I don't remember that. I think from the time I knew what was happening, I wanted to be a guitar player.

I tend not to write on guitar very often. I tend to start off with keyboards.

I'm hopeless at playing scales. Try and be instinctive first and analytic afterwords, although it's good to study the theory of music.

Queen had its time and place, and at the moment I'm not concentrating on that era.

We've done an arrangement with an orchestra, but I think the best stuff tends to come when it's just the four of us.

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

...I think the popular view of Science is a solid body of truth, shared by a whole lot of learned men in a room, all agreeing on the answers to the questions of how the Universe works. Whereas nothing could be further from the truth!!! The one truth that I see emerging from the History of Science is that experiment has always surprised theorists. Einstein included!

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

I've always lived in that guitar world. I have noticed kids being more into the real essence of guitar music now.

I have to build my own boat this time. It's a big sea out there, and I have a pretty small boat. I have a lot of belief in it.

I tend to be not a person who does everything right all the time.

When I'm gone, people will no doubt remember me for Queen, but I would much rather be remembered for attempting to change the way we treat our fellow creatures.

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

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

I like a big neck – thick, flat and wide. I lacquered the fingerboard with Rustin's Plastic Coating. The tremolo is interesting in that the arm's made from an old bicycle saddle bag carrier, the knob at the end's off a knitting needle and the springs are valve springs from an old motorbike.

I was an incurable romantic then, same as I am now. I was always pining away after somebody

The biggest emotion in creation is the bridge to optimism.

Not for a million - years. I mean, I like the INXS boys, but I found the process very degrading, really. Reality television has eaten away at our standards of excellence. I don't like this whole culture, which has evolved, of TV being the king.

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

Mantovani was a great influence on me.

Doing Made In Heaven was like assembling a jigsaw puzzle, but I wouldn't have put my seal of approval on it if I hadn't thought it was up to standard.

There are times when I've been feeling something and played a solo that I've never been able to repeat.

You want to go in the steam bath to get your vocals sounding well, but you don't want your fingers to get soft.

If I go to places where other people are playing, I often get up and play myself. I just enjoy the sound and feel of playing.

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

Sometimes if the guitar is the last thing to go on, it's very fresh.

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

I think Hammer's very cool: he has a great voice and great presence.

I'm not a person for sitting on beaches. What would I do?

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.

You got blood on your face, you big disgrace, waving your banner all over the place.

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

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.

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.

I'd put a lot of work into playing guitar and was thinking I was pretty damn good. But Hendrix came along and destroyed everyone.

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

This man (FreddieMercury) truly possessed the greatest voice in the history of rock. Journalists, culture experts and analysts have already made several hundred comments on this topic and nothing can be added here.

Queen songs tend to be about very personal things: personal dreams and personal ambitions.

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.

George Harrison was a fabulous, fabulous, fabulous guitarist, and a wonderful example of what a rock star should be. I totally revered him as an innovator. He was always fresh, daring, magnificently melodic, full of spiritual quality, and totally conscious of the chord structure beneath the solo. And he had the courage to play simple. He never took refuge in effects, or tried to impress with speed. I hope he knew how much we all loved and respected him.

Queen songs are not about the life of a rock star - they tend to be about the lives of normal people, which is why I think the songs connect so much. We're very lucky that they seemingly connect with every generation.

There's nothing I'm embarrassed about

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

People have been rumouring that Queen are going to split up for the last eight years at least. I've got some great cuttings at home from people saying 'One thing is certain, Queen will no longer exist in a year's time.' And that was in 1973.