Quotes from Lindsey Buckingham

I do think my lyrics have gotten... not necessarily more poetic, but more open to interpretation; they're less literal.

Studio D has a lot of symbolism for me.

We really were poised to make 'Rumours 2,' and that could've been the beginning of kind of painting yourself into a corner in terms of living up to the labels that were being placed on you as a band.

Lyrically, you know, most of the things on 'Rumours' were very autobiographical and very much conversations the three writers were having with other members of the band.

Even though I had pushed through the Tango album, it was just not a very good environment to be in on a daily basis. In many ways, this is the best time of my life.

'Tango' was a good experience, looking back on it, and it seems to hold up pretty well.

Back in 1985, I was working on my third solo album when the band came to me and asked me to produce the next Fleetwood Mac project. At that point, I put aside my solo work - which was half finished - and committed myself for the next seventeen months to producing 'Tango in the Night.'

If you look at the whole time I was in the band, I only did, like, three solo albums - two, really. 'Out Of The Cradle,' I had already left because we'd done 'Tango In The Night,' and it was sort of the logical extension of crazy in terms of everyone getting ready to hit the wall with their habits.

If you talk about the 'Tango in the Night' album, the reason I didn't do that tour was because the album took about 10 months, and it was such an uncreative atmosphere.

There have been times when I've feared for my own well-being in the great scheme of things because, historically, the track record has not been kind to the guitar players in this band.

I'm trying to break down preconceptions about what pop music is.

I was lucky enough to meet someone when I was about 46 and had my first child when I was 48, so I got started late, but I also got all that other stuff out of the way and was at a point where I could be a consistent presence at home.

You're not going to reinvent the wheel every time you go out, because that would disappoint the audience.

That's basically what's going on now: Everything is propaganda.

You work in a band, and it tends to be more like moviemaking, I think. It tends to be more of a conscious, verbalized and, to some degree, political process.

The thought of being on my own really terrified me. But then I realized being alone is really a cleansing thing.

The rest of the band had a cynical view towards the way 'Tusk' was made and the reasons why I thought it was important to move into new territory. It wasn't just negativity. There was open hostility. Then I got a certain amount of flak because it didn't sell as many as 'Rumours.'

The 12 years I was in Fleetwood Mac before were not particularly happy years. I was not in a very good place, psychologically, when I left. I didn't have a lot of confidence in what I was doing.

The only way I've been able to keep my sanity is to pull back when I feel like it's time to pull back.

That's one of the real downfalls of celebrity. You're something that's about you at some point, and that gets latched onto and pumped into the machinery. Then you start having a million other people telling you who you are, and what you should be doing and why, and it's easy to lose your way.

Defining something being a Fleetwood Mac song is calling it a Fleetwood Mac song, you know? Nothing becomes Fleetwood Mac until that's what you call it.

You could say that Fleetwood Mac is a bit of a dysfunctional family, but we are a family.

I left Fleetwood Mac to make myself happy, and fortunately, it worked.

You come off the kind of commercial success that 'Rumours' had, and you see that there are limitations to that as well as freedoms.