Eric Clapton Quotes

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

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.

I got a problem, can you relate? I got a woman calling love hate.

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.

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.

My definition of Blues is that it's a musical form which is very disciplined and structured coupled with a state of mind, and you can have either of those things but it's the two together that make it what it is. And you need to be a student for one, and a human being for the other, but those things alone don't do it.

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

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.

If you hand me a guitar, I'll play the blues. That's the place I automatically go.

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.

Would you know my name If I saw you in heaven Will it be the same If I saw you in heaven I must be strong, and carry on Cause I know I don't belong Here in heaven Would you hold my hand If I saw you in heaven Would you help me stand If I saw you in heaven I'll find my way, through night and day Cause I know I just can't stay Here in heaven

'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.

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

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.

Up until I became a father, it was all about self-obsession. But then I learned exactly what it's all about: the delight of being a servant.

Give me a guitar and I'll play; give me a stage and I'll perform; give me an auditorium and I'll fill it.

And I don't like having my picture taken. I'm almost like an old African in that sense. I think it steals a bit of the soul.

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.

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

And if I don't be there by morning, she'll know that I must've spent the night in jail.

For me, the most trustworthy vehicle for spirituality had always proven to be music.

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.

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

When I'm wrong it's never meant for you, so don't confuse my love with what I do.

I thought, 'My God, this is like Buddy Guy on acid.'

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.

You were at school and you were pimply and no one wanted to know you. You get into a group and you've got thousands of chicks there.

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

All I am certain of right now is that I don't want to go anywhere, and that's not bad for someone who always used to run.

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.

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

I know there will be no more tears in heaven.

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

Time can bring you down, time can bend your knees.

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

At first the music almost repelled me, it was so intense, and this man made no attempt to sugarcoat what he was trying to say, or play. It was hard-core, more than anything I had ever heard. After a few listenings I realized that, on some level, I had found the master, and that following this man's example would be my life's work.

Music became a healer for me.

I'm an egomaniac with an inferiority complex.

It's very difficult to explain the effect the first blues record I heard had on me, except to say that I recognized it immediately. It was as if I were being reintroduced to something that I already knew, maybe from another, earlier life. For me there is something primitively soothing about this music, and it went straight to my nervous system, making me feel ten feet tall.

I can't play long solos anymore without boring myself.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

When I saw Jimi Hendrix I knew immediately that this guy was the real thing ... and when he played it was like a rough sketch of what he was going to become ... this guy was our generation, and he wasn't in a suit .. he played a Howlin' Wolf song 'Killing Floor', and then we (The Cream) had to carry on the set. It was pretty hard to follow.