Brian May

“I think music is about our internal life. It's part of the way people touch each other. That's very precious to me. And astronomy is, in a sense, the very opposite thing. Instead of looking inwards, you are looking out, to things beyond our grasp.”

“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.”

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

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

“I don't surf the net in general. I have someone do it for me instead, because I find it sluggish.”

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

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

“Mantovani was a great influence on me.”

“I don't think anybody comes close to The Beatles, including Oasis.”

“It's wonderful for me to see what 'We Will Rock You' has done. 'We Will Rock You' and 'We Are the Champions' have kind of transcended the normal framework of where music is listened to and appreciated - they've become part of public life, which I feel wonderful about.”

“The biggest emotion in creation is the bridge to optimism.”

“The music itself is very challenging, so I've never really felt the lack of stimulation. I love to be creating; I love to be making things and solving problems, I suppose, and when I'm not, then I'm not an incredibly good person to be around. If I'm not busy, then I think I would be disaster. That's just the way things are.”

“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.”

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

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

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

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