Guitar Quotes from Influential Guitar Players

“Sometimes you want to give up the guitar, you’ll hate the guitar. But if you stick with it, you’re gonna be rewarded.” – Jimi Hendrix

“The guitar has a kind of grit and excitement possessed by nothing else.” – Brian May

“All I’ve got is a red guitar, three chords and the truth.” – Bob Dylan

“I’m only myself when I have a guitar in my hands.” – George Harrison

“I tried when I was 13, when my grandparents gave me an acoustic guitar, and I tried for a year. It hurt so much to play. I mean, the fingertips hurt so much, I gave up.” – Eric Clapton

“If you hand me a guitar, I’ll play the blues. That’s the place I automatically go.” – Eric Clapton

“I just want to be able to play and make people feel good with what I do. When you’re thinking that way, anything can happen. And, usually, what happens is good.” – Mark Knopfler

“I had no aspirations to be a musician, but I picked up a guitar for two seconds and haven’t put it down since.” – Slash

“Guitar is the best form of self-expression I know. Everything else, and I’m just sort of tripping around, trying to figure my way through life.” – Slash

“Guitar players get inward and analytical about their playing but when you start to get positive feedback from other players it makes you think that it is coming together.” – John Petrucci

“I’ve learned over the years that you’re going to be most successful at the things you’re most excited to do.” – Steve Vai

“As long as you’re excited about what you’re playing, and as long as it comes from your heart, it’s going to be great.” – John Frusciante

“Can’t stand it. Too many amps, too much volume, it’s just flat-out ear assault. Speedy guitars leave me not feeling detached but physically upset. When you think of all the subtleties that were built into the guitar and amps for you to discover they completely cover the whole lot with a rack of effects. The guitar doesn’t need that.” – Jeff Beck

“Who I am as a guitarist is defined by my failure to become Jimi Hendrix”. – John Mayer

“If you really love guitar, you’re going to spend every waking hour stroking the thing.” – Frank Zappa

“You’re always learning about this thing everytime you pick it up” – Keith Richards

“I had struggled with alternate picking for a very long time. I never thought I could do it.” – Paul Gilbert

“My guitars are my umbilical cord. They’re directly wired into my head.” – Kirk Hammett

“Make your heart bleed! Put your soul into that damn thing. And try new things.” – Dimebag Darrell

“If you’re into what you’re playing, that’s the most important thing.” – James Hetfield

“The beautiful thing about learning is nobody can take it away from you.” – B.B. King

“I wanted to connect my guitar to human emotions.” – B. B. King

“All I want for Christmas is a rock n roll electric guitar ” – Chuck Berry

“I didn’t follow any rules at all. I made my own.” – Tony Iommi

“I always wanted to be able to show off like the guitar players do. I think I managed that alright!” – Lemmy

“Since I can’t read music and everything, I find out that I do the best when I just listen to where I’m trying to go with it, and where it can go, and not try to rush it.” – Stevie Ray Vaughan

“So, my big brother was playing guitar and I figured I’d try it too.” – Stevie Ray Vaughan

“My body is damaged from music in two ways. I have a red irritation in my stomach. It’s psychosomatic, caused by all the anger and the screaming. I have scoliosis, where the curvature of your spine is bent, and the weight of my guitar has made it worse. I’m always in pain, and that adds to the anger in our music.” – Kurt Cobain

“Every time you pick up your guitar to play, play as if it’s the last time.” – Eric Clapton

“Music doesn’t lie. If there is something to be changed in this world, then it can only happen through music.” – Jimi Hendrix

“The guitar is just a wonderful instrument. It’s everything: a bartender, a psychiatrist, a housewife. It’s everything, but it’s elusive.” – Les Paul

“I can’t even read notes. But I can teach someone how to make a guitar smoke.” – Ace Frehley

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m just a guitar player, and my job is to go out there and play and entertain and do my thing.” – Les Paul

“I started out playing guitar because Jimi Hendrix was my hero, so my roots were really based on Jimi Hendrix and his style of playing.” – Joe Satriani

“I loved that playing the guitar wasn’t easy. It was pain, but it was my pain. And then it became joy. My joy.” – Joe Satriani

“Besides being a guitar player, I’m a big fan of the guitar. I love that damn instrument.” – Steve Vai

“I used to run home from school, pick up my guitar, and lock myself in my room and play.” – Angus Young

“I’d think learning to play the guitar would be very confusing for sighted people.” – Doc Watson

“To be honest, I’m one of the least-technical guitar players around. I just want a guitar to feel good and sound good. That’s it, period.” – Scott Ian

“I never had a real job either. I sort of fell out of school and ended up playing guitar.” – Vivian Campbell

“Most people can do what I do – they can do guitar solos – but they can’t do a good, hard rhythm guitar and be dedicated to it.” – Angus Young

“I started doing up-and-down strumming, basically to keep time and to play fast. As time went on, I started realizing other guitar players couldn’t do it. I always went against the grain.” – Johnny Ramone

“If I sit down with an electric guitar, what’s going to come out are Sabbath/Zeppelin type riffs, but if I’m sitting behind a piano late at night, I might write something like ‘Desperado.’ You’re not going to write ‘Desperado’ between a wall of Marshalls and thumping, crushing volume.” – Zakk Wylde

“To stand up on a stage alone with an acoustic guitar requires bravery bordering on heroism. Bordering on insanity.” – Richard Thompson

“If I heard a noise at night, I’d think there was a burglar sneaking around; the first thing I’d do was check on my guitar.” – Angus Young

“I taught myself how to play the guitar, so I basically learned by a system of making mistakes.” – Richie Sambora

“Success is falling nine times and getting up ten times.” – Jon Bon Jovi

“The music just tends to be a vehicle for that poetry.” – Mark Knopfler

“I been in the blues all my life. I’m still delivering ’cause I got a long memory.” – Muddy Waters

“Describing certain sounds, there’s a common language that guitar players have.” – Joe Perry

“I can sing fine and I can play guitar fine, but put ’em together and it becomes a thoughtful effort.” – Jerry Cantrell

“For me, the guitar synthesizer is a great writing instrument.” – Andy Summers

“I wanted to be able to play guitar. I wanted to be able to make music hurt.” – Alexis Korner

“Learning to play with a big amplifier is like trying to control an elephant.” – Ritchie Blackmore

“I was playing with steel picks on a steel guitar, and there was no amplification needed.” – Brownie McGhee

“I think a good guitar solo sounds so much better within the context of a good song.” – Gary Moore

“One day you pick up the guitar and you feel like a great master, and the next day you feel like a fool. It’s because we’re different every day, but the guitar is always the same, beautiful.” – Tommy Emmanuel

“I have spent as much of my life trying to improve my singing as I have practicing guitar.” – David Gilmour

“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” – David Gilmour

“When I was growing up, there were two things that were unpopular in my house. One was me, and the other was my guitar.” – Bruce Springsteen

“Guitars have been the obsession of my life. I first picked one up at the age of four and I’ve been a guitar junkie ever since.” – Johnny Marr

“I’ve always dabbled on guitar, but never took lessons.” – Adam Jones

“Basically, I try to treat the electric guitar like an acoustic guitar. What you have to do is attack the instrument and know that your feelings aren’t controlled by the controls of your guitar.” – Rory Gallagher

“I don’t play a lot of fancy guitar. I don’t want to play it. The kind of guitar I want to play is mean, mean licks.” – John Lee Hooker

“I was too broke to buy a guitar so I more borrowed guitars from friends.” – Ronnie Montrose

“I’ll sit around and play my guitar; that’s how I write tunes.” – Otis Rush

“I’m going through a divorce now. This is the second one, and like baseball, I’m not gonna get three strikes. I’ve been living by myself for five years and I’m very comfortable. I can play my guitar when I want to.” – Buddy Guy

“I believe every guitar player inherently has something unique about their playing. They just have to identify what makes them different and develop it.” – Jimmy Page

“I was a fan of the group. I thought they were great – loved The Eagles – but I thought that their beautiful harmonies would sound amazing with some rock guitar behind them.” – Joe Walsh

“What I couldn’t say verbally I was able to express physically through the guitar.” – Dave Mustaine

“If you want to be a rock star or just be famous, then run down the street naked, you’ll make the news or something. But if you want music to be your livelihood, then play, play, play and play! And eventually you’ll get to where you want to be.” – Eddie Van Halen

“A guitar is a very personal extension of the person playing it. You have to be emotionally and spiritually connected to your instrument. I’m very brutal on my instruments, but not all the time.” – Eddie Van Halen

“I just want to be a guy with a guitar.” – Jeff Buckley

“The guitar was my weapon, my shield to hide behind.” – Brian May

“Sometimes the nicest thing to do with a guitar is just look at it.” – Thom Yorke

“That’s the thing about the blues: It’s one thing to hit a note on a guitar. To make it matter is something else altogether.” – Joe Bonamassa 

“Most people are prisoners, thinking only about the future or living in the past. They are not in the present, and the present is where everything begins.” – Carlos Santana

“The guitar is an orchestra in itself.” – Ludwig Van Beethoven