Guitar Quotes

That it's a lot harder to make a keyboard sound not-cheesy than a guitar. ~ Julian Casablancas

Shut Up and Play your Guitar. ~ Frank Zappa

And it may be that a crowd at a particular moment of history creates the object to justify its gathering, as it did at the first Human Be-In and Monterey Pop and Woodstock. Or it may be that two generations of war and surveillance had left people craving the embodiment of their own unease in the form of a lone, unsteady man on a slide guitar. ~ Jennifer Egan

You can or you can't is not the matter.You wanted to or you tried is the whole game about. ~ Vikrmn

At the Muddy Waters thing, I played the first song by myself on an acoustic guitar. I thought that was great that y'all did that tribute to Muddy Waters. I had a real good time. ~ Gregg Allman

My dad has always been very proud of me but I think I have exceeded his expectations. When I told him I wanted to be an actor and moved to New York City, I think he assumed I would be playing the guitar on the subway and collecting spare change in my guitar case. The fact that I'm not doing that means that I'm a huge success. ~ Jesse Tyler Ferguson

All the women in the world want a phony rock star who plays guitar. ~ John Mellencamp

I was this little blond girl with a guitar case bigger than me - it was pink and sparkly at the time. But I always took myself seriously, and I think that people took that seriously. I would tell them about my goal list, and they listened. I was like, 'I want to be the one that swings the pendulum.' ~ Kelsea Ballerini

When it's a funky uptempo song, you're basically having the same kind of release you would have when you have sex, only it lasts longer. Whether you're playing it on the guitar or on the dance floor, you're in that moment. ~ Bonnie Raitt

Like Paul Kraston said, all I ask in life is a water bed, a TV and a typewriter. Well, I'll just have an ordinary bed, a TV and a guitar. ~ John Lennon

I would hole up in my bedroom growing up and teach myself guitar. ~ Dustin Lynch

Soon enough my mind hooked onto the missing guitars and the locked door and the hole filled up with clues and suspects and all the detective stuff and I could pretend it was just another case.
The guitars. The lock. The keys. The gun. The musician in the drawing room with the gun. The duchess in the kitchen with the guitar. I let my mind fill with the case. It was only a case. Only another case. Another sentence of words to arrange.
Maybe that was all there was to life. One long case, only you kept switching roles. Detective, witness, client, suspect. Then one day I'd be the victim instead of the detective or the client and it would all be over. Then I'd finally have a fucking day off. ~ Sara Gran

It's always great playing with other musicians. It's also a great situation where I'm the older guy, I've influenced generations of guitar players. ~ Ace Frehley

One night I was standing on Third Avenue playing my guitar, when this big Irish policeman came strolling by, and stopped to listen to my singing and playing. When I was done, he politely handed me a ticket for disturbing the peace, while at the same time telling me how much he liked my voice. I wish I still had that ticket. ~ Frank Stallone

I'm nervous, but once I get a guitar on and start a song, after the first few seconds, I can feel it ease. I don't have to worry about anything other than the music. ~ Phillip Phillips

Playing guitar is a never-finished journey. ~ John Fogerty

Sometimes I feel like nothin,' somethin' throwed away,
Somethin' throwed away.
And then I get my guitar, play the blues all day. ~ William Christopher Handy

She [Mrs. Badger] was surrounded in the drawing-room by various objects, indicative of her painting a little, playing the piano a little, playing the guitar a little, playing the harp a little, singing a little, working a little, reading a little, writing poetry a little, and botanizing a little. She was a lady of about fifty, I should think, youthfully dressed, and of a very fine complexion. If I add to the little list of her accomplishments that she rouged a little, I do not mean that there was any harm in it. ~ Charles Dickens

For my 23rd birthday, I received a nylon string guitar. I told myself that if I could play Eric Clapton's 'Tears In Heaven,' then I could play the guitar. I practised every chance I got, driving my housemates insane, until several weeks later I had a shaky version of the song down. I wrote my first song on the guitar a few weeks after that. ~ Neil Jackson

There was a lot of camaraderie among the bands. I remember a lot of times when I'd be driving up Laurel Canyon and pass by the house where Frank Zappa was living and I'd just see people out on the porch playing guitars. ~ June Millington

I played guitar in a band from when I was about 20 for three years. Then I sang a little. Then I started getting really busy as an actor and forgot about it. ~ Michael Imperioli

There's people that say "It's not fair You have all that stuff." I wasn't born with it. It was a horrible process to get to this. It took me my whole life. If you're new at this- and by "new at it." I mean 15 years in, or even 20- you're just starting to grow traction. Young musicians believe they should be able to throw a band together and be famous, and anything that's in their way is unfair and evil. What are you, in your 20s, you picked up a guitar? Give it a minute. ~ Louis C.K.

The jam stuff doesn't appeal to me in general. My newfound love for the Dead came from Robert Hunter and Jerry Garcia's songwriting, not the elaborate guitar solos. I'm a song person. Once it starts to break out of that structure and become loopy, it's uninteresting to me. ~ Colin Meloy

I tried to emulate my favourite guitar players, the old bluesmen like Blind Willie McTell and Big Bill Broonzy. I used to sit by the record player and copy Chuck Berry and the Beatles. You can never copy someone completely, so you end up developing your own style. ~ Ronnie Wood

It's a magical thing, the guitar. It allows you to be the whole band in one, to play rhythm and melody, sing over the top. And as an instrument for solos, you can bend notes, draw emotional content out of tiny movements, vibratos and tonal things which even a piano can't do. ~ David Gilmour

Broken Melody

Broken melody - tear sparkling in the eye
Of a woman loved…
Please past,
Jewel lost,
A trampled dream
Lips unkissed
In the broken melody.

With silent sobs the naked shoulders shake,
Their whiteness dazzling…
Stabbed, stabbed with remorse
For the moments of mindlessness,
For her ruined fate,
For the happiness lost
In the broken melody.

Face hidden in her hands in shame,
Remorsefully the woman weeps,
With heart despairing
(A broken guitar,
A voice stifled
On lips kissed by pain
In the broken melody).
Silent he stands beside the woman weeping

Scolding tears of shame
That dim her eyes.
Some money on the table quickly lays
And goes away,
Leaving the woman lost
In the broken melody.
But when another comes, lust mounts again,

The heated blood
Pounds furiously through the veins,
Benumbing mind
… and only gasps
And grants are heard
In the horrid melody.

(Translated by R.Elsie) ~ Millosh Gjergj Nikolla (Migjeni)

JENKINS AND VIRGIL walked back up the valley to the Ruff house, and found Muddy inside, tootling on a black electric guitar, a complex ~ John Sandford

In recording, you're trying to make something work sonically - getting the right inflection on the right guitar sound - and maybe a part that would be musically great doesn't sound as cool. ~ Beck

I am, by nature, a guitar player ... I learned all of these other instruments around that, and around the theory that I built learning the guitar. ~ Hunter Hayes

We just got a tour bus. I didn't know tour buses could be this nice. It's just me, Brian Haner the guitar guy, the tour manager and a writer. We laugh ourselves silly. Apparently we're going to have a road dog, a miniature pincher. It's the smallest they've ever seen. How masculine am I going to look, working with dolls and a miniature dog? ~ Jeff Dunham

Challenges in the rear view appear smaller than they are.. But keep your spirits higher than the Challenges are. ~ Vikrmn

Hurting a softhearted caring person would please you but loss is yours; you would have friends less one. ~ Vikrmn

The day before my 16th birthday I got my guitar. ~ Stevie Nicks

I was interested in the electric guitar even before I knew the difference between electric and acoustic. The electric guitar seemed to be a totally fascinating plank of wood with knobs and switches on it. I just had to have one. ~ Jeff Beck

Music is another language, one so close to actual thought, strung together, sometimes staccato, flowing, and sometimes even nonsensical or harsh to the ears. It's truth in an otherwise dishonest world. ~ Moryah DeMott

There comes a point with any collaboration like that where you start having other interests creatively. I was moving in one direction musically, and as a guitar player, Mark wanted to move in another direction. That was essentially the reason we broke up. ~ Scott Stapp

I played guitar from the age of four or five. Every year there would be a slightly larger triangular box under the Christmas tree, until finally I got one that was big enough to make a proper sound. ~ Johnny Marr

Link Wray ... He was the beginning of Grunge, way before anybody you know. ~ Neil Young

I had piano lessons at five and started guitar at ten, but although music and acting was always around me, my parents never pressured me into it. ~ Micky Dolenz

I call myself a blues singer, but you ain't never heard me call myself a blues guitar man. ~ B.B. King

It was great to do August Rush and have all the challenges of playing that character, especially the American accent for the first time and also playing the guitar and the conducting I had to do. ~ Freddie Highmore

Like Guitar in Son of Solomon, and Son in Tar Baby, he believed that harmony could never exist between the races. ~ Toni Morrison

Chet Atkins ... is probably the best guitar player who ever lived. ~ Charley Pride

I actually write more on guitar than I do on piano. ~ Norah Jones

If you can strike the cord of consistency on the guitar of life, the world will dance to your music of greatness ~ Osho Samuel Adetunji

Decide. What you want? Life full of years or Years full of life. NOW. ~ Vikrmn

George had taken off all ten of his fingers and tied them into a bundle with what appeared to be either his own small intestines, or a guitar string; as I walked into the room, he lovingly placed the bundle on his head. ~ Alan Goldsher

I wanted to hear the songs in the way that I had written them, which was very basic. All I wanted was drums and another guitar, and I was just going to sing. ~ Thurston Moore

It's harder to play drums than guitar, physically. I'm always kind of on the edge. I guess that's how I play everything: on the edge of my ability. ~ J Mascis

I wanted to come back to the guitar after three albums and almost 10 years. I started to miss this instrument and I wanted to come back to the guitar. ~ Rokia Traore

The more I dim my eyes over print and frazzle my brain over abstract ideas, the more I appreciate the delight of being basically an animal wrapped in a sensitive skin: sex, the resistance of rock, the taste and touch of snow, the feel of the sun, good wine and a rare beefsteak and the company of friends around a fire with a guitar and lousy old cowboy songs. Despair: I'll never be a scholar, never be a decent good Christian. Just a hedonist, a pagan, a primitive romantic ~ Edward Abbey

player hummed for a second, then sweet sad acoustic guitar filled the air, arpeggiated cascades that transformed the cramped space of the room. The voice that followed was smoky and haunting, filled with loss: ~ John Skipp

My love of music comes from as long as I remember. I begged my mum to learn piano for a year when I was 4; she wanted to make sure I was serious, and I wanted to be Chuck Berry when I grew up! We were a very musical family; my mum would play guitar, and her, my dad and aunt would sing and harmonize! ~ Natalia Tena

I play guitar, the ukulele and the piano. I grew up on a mountain in Tennessee, and we had 'The Mountain Opry,' where anyone could just get up on stage to perform. It was just about the soul and heart of music. My upbringing was less about being great and more about just doing what you love. It was always for joy. ~ Rachel Boston

Muddy Waters, I suppose, was my first great hero. You know, every boy wants to be a guitar player, and Muddy Waters was just the king. He was the King Bee. He was it. ~ Hugh Laurie

Even now, at 82 years old, if I don't learn something every day, you know what I think? It's a day lost. Now, I don't practice every day. I just take the guitar, swear at it. But I should be swearing at myself. But I fool with music. I'm doing something musically all the time. And my ears are wide open for anything I can hear. ~ B.B. King

I had this idea ... I wanted the sound to sing and have that thickness but yet still have an edge so that it could articulate. So my dad and I designed the guitar ... the one that was made from an old fireplace. ~ Brian May

Zachary looked down into the swirling morass that was his beer as the man walked onto the stage and started to play a solo piece, the band respectfully allowing him to start off his set by staking his claim. Zachary would give him staking his claim. He had his guitar nestling close by his side, as always, the leather of the case gently touching his calf, sending an almost erotic charge through his body every time he moved like the less than innocent brush of a future lover's hand on a bare arm. ~ Pete Langman

I guess I'm interested in pushing the boundaries of the cello without giving up on the idea of playing the cello, if that makes any sense. I have no real interest in putting the cello through different effects to make it sound like a guitar or other instruments. ~ Okkyung Lee

I just play, just you know, If i just sit down with the guitar and just do whatever for, you know, an half an hour or an hour whatever. That's pretty much, that should do it for me. ~ Slash

It's really funny, I think to myself ... I've got my same guitar and amp, it's just a bigger room now! Some things don't change. ~ Brian Setzer

(I was) my own teacher and pupil, and thanks to the efforts of both, they were not discontented with each other. ~ Andres Segovia

I'm glad there are a lot of guitar players pursuing technique as diligently as they possibly can, because it leaves this whole other area open to people like me. ~ Richard Thompson

Every guitar has a personality. ~ Jol Dantzig

I'm writing new songs for a Broadway version of Tarzan, which is very interesting. I think what I learned from the Brother Bear score side of things, I've brought into the new Tarzan songs. Thinking outside just guitar, bass, drums and keyboards. ~ Phil Collins

I've just been recording mostly acoustic stuff, drums, and sax, and electric guitar. I'm just still writing songs and what not. ~ Phillip Phillips

The guitar gives you a lot of space to cover for yourself, but there's not a lot of room for that on piano. ~ Guy Picciotto

I really wanted to approach performing live differently than most people who just play guitar and sing. ~ James Vincent McMorrow

I started off with violin, then I started learning guitar, then I went to piano. But I self-taught piano just because I enjoyed it. I've always really enjoyed music. ~ Jesse Spencer

I have been playing a lot of keyboards, especially in the last five or six years. I suppose it gives you more scope than the guitar, although it does tend to make you write a different way. ~ Mick Ralphs

When I graduated from college in the spring of 1970, I decided to hitchhike around Europe with my guitar and my backpack. I was gone for about four months. ~ John Oates

A man can't have too many guitars or too many shotguns. ~ Robert Earl Keen

If you go to Japan, they're still buying vinyl, and they want the education. They know who's playing on what tracks from the '60s and the '70s - who the guitar player is, who the drummer is, who the producer was, what studio it was recorded in. That's how I grew up listening to music. We bought albums. We read the liner notes. It was important to know the whole history behind it. ~ Lenny Kravitz

Lenny Breau is one of the true geniuses of the guitar. I suppose he is a musician's musician. His knowledge of the instrument and the music is so vast, and I think that's what knocks people out about him. But he's such a tasty player too. I think if Chopin had played guitar, he would have sounded like Lenny Breau. ~ Chet Atkins

I sit down with a guitar player and if there's a situation I feel strongly about, or a guy that I've been thinking about or if I'm mad at a guy, it comes out. ~ Avril Lavigne

Kat: You can't just buy me a guitar every time you mess up, you know.
Pat: I know, but there's still drums, and a bass, and maybe even someday a tambourine. ~ David Levithan

I came to New York with two bags, my guitar and my laptop. I set my stuff down and immediately ran to an audition. ~ Ciara Renee

The moment you think you are out of resources; you still have one thing, Will to Win. Ignite it. ~ Vikrmn

For the serious and dedicated guitarist, learning to play and master the Guitar represents The Path or Way of Enlightenment of which there is no end. Ultimately, playing the Guitar represents the Path to Spiritual Perfection. The guitarist is always a student on this Path. To become a master of the Guitar, relatively speaking, is to always be a student of the Guitar, continually learning and growing with the instrument. The master never thinks of him or herself as a master, but rather as the eternal student on whatever Path he or she is walking in life. We are all students here on this little green earth. ~ David Cherubim

Of course the folk guitar is the one I play very often, but I wanted a more electric sound. ~ Rokia Traore

Barney Kessel is definitely the best guitar player in this world, or any other world. ~ George Harrison

After a short breather, Reiko crushed her cigarette out and picked her guitar up again. She played "Penny Lane," "Blackbird," "Julia," "When I'm 64," "Nowhere Man," "And I Love Her," and "Hey Jude. ~ Haruki Murakami

I tend to write on an acoustic guitar or the piano. I have kind of a rule: if I can't sit down and play this and get the song over, I don't take it to the band, because most any good song, you can sit down and deliver it with a piano or a guitar. ~ Tom Petty

People have always been resistant to change. If you go back to the 17th, 18th century, playing guitar was frowned upon. When rock n' roll first started, no one took it seriously. ~ Moby

I just love playing guitar, so that's what I'm going to do. ~ St. Vincent

I was training to be a lawyer ... I was president of the law society at Glasgow University, and my bass guitarist was my secretary of my law society; the lead guitarist and writer worked at the law firm that I worked. ~ Gerard Butler

Your good friends can write a book on you; but Your best friends can create an embarrassing full fledged 3 hours movie on you, with silliest jingles and animation made ever. ~ Vikrmn

I play a bunch of instruments, like piano, drums, guitar and bass. And the kazoo every now and then. I'm trying to learn how to play the trumpet and the saxophone. That's what I'm learning how to play. ~ Mac Miller

As a musician and a guitar player, I can noodle as well as anybody. But from my background as a session musician, I always try to play what is called for by the lyric and listening to the song. As a writer, that's what I do, too. ~ Richie Sambora

Many were starting to use computerized synthesizers & drum machines to produce an entirely new style of music. It was being punted by the critics that the guitar was old hat; I was reminded of the way my father & his clarinets were written off in the late Fifties. ~ Pete Townshend

I am the Great White Buffalo and I play an American-made Gibson guitar that can blow your head clean off at 100 paces. ~ Ted Nugent

I was immediately taken with Geoff Muldaur's rich soulful voice, masterful phrasing and guitar playing when I first heard him. ~ Lucinda Williams

My dad is a huge rock and roll lead guitar fan. I didn't even really know that until recently. Everything has to have a guitar solo in it. ~ Slash

First love yourself.. the real inner-self.. then only you'll be able to love the world.. the lives.. the souls. ~ Vikrmn

I'm a struggling guitar player. ~ Megyn Kelly

Among the guitarists, Wes Montgomery is fantastic. He's always good to let you know what the art form is all about. It's the same still life that everybody is painting, but in comes Wes Montgomery, and it's right there! ~ Bill Cosby

If the guitar synthesizer is really going to stand as a synthesizer on its own, it needs to develop a more characteristic sound; I don' think it's gotten there yet. ~ Andy Summers

I've always said the bass just happens to be the crayon I picked out of the box. I'd still be drawing the same pictures ... should I have picked trumpet or accordion or guitar, whatever it may be. The sounds in my head are still the same. ~ Les Claypool

There are two kinds of music. One comes from the strings of a guitar, the other from the strings of the heart. One sound comes from a chamber orchestra, the other from the beating of the heart's chamber. One comes from an instrument of graphite and wood, the other from an organ of flesh and blood. This loftier music I speak of tonight is more pleasing than the notes of the most gifted composers, more moving than a marching band, more harmonious than a thousand voices joined in hymn and more powerful than all the world's percussion instruments combined. That sweet sound of love. ~ Michael Jackson

Through Jimi Hendrix's music you can almost see the assassinations of President John F. Kennedy and of Martin Luther King Junior, the beginnings of the Berlin Wall, Yuri Gagarin in space, Fidel Castro and Cuba, the debut of Spiderman, Martin Luther King Junior's 'I Have a Dream' speech, Ford Mustang cars, anti-Vietnam protests, Mary Quant designing the mini-skirt, Indira Gandhi becoming the Prime Minister of India, four black students sitting down at a whites-only lunch counter in Greensboro North Carolina, President Johnson pushing the Civil Rights Act, flower children growing their hair long and practicing free love, USA-funded IRA blowing up innocent civilians on the streets and in the pubs of Great Britain, Napalm bombs being dropped on the lush and carpeted fields of Vietnam, a youth-driven cultural revolution in Swinging London, police using tear gas and billy-clubs to break up protests in Chicago, Mods and Rockers battling on Brighton Beach, Native Americans given the right to vote in their own country, the United Kingdom abolishing the death penalty, and the charismatic Argentinean Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara. It's all in Jimi's absurd and delirious guitar riffs. ~ Karl Wiggins