Quotes from Eric Clapton

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.

The toughest thing about being a celebrity, I suppose, is being polite when I don't want to be.

Risk is trying to control something you are powerless over.

It was a mystery to me, how the tuning was, or the style seemed to come out of nowhere, it obviously had roots in America going way back, there was nothing like it for me I'd ever seen before.

I mean, it didn't matter to me that there were people, it didn't matter that I was shy Just the sound was so captivating that it helped me to get rid of those inhibitions.

I mean, the sound of an amplified guitar in a room full of people was so hypnotic and addictive to me, that I could cross any kind of border to get on there.

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

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

I just like the company of beautiful women. I have a weakness in that department.

The first one was quite cheap, but that was expensive for us. For my folks to buy on the Never Never. It was quite, you know, a rare object to have and I gained quite a lot of status by having this.

Leave bands, go back to obscurity if I choose to, without a great sense of loss of security because it's all been based on the fact that I did it on my own or was doing, enjoying doing it on my own in the first place.

An obsession is where something will not leave your mind.

[Unplugged] was also the cheapest to produce and required the least amount of preparation and work. But if you want to know what it actually cost me, go to Ripley and visit the grave of my son.

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.

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.

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 only planning I do is about a minute before I play. I desperately try to think of something that will be effective, but I never sit down and work it out note for note.

To sing in a lower key is harder work. You have to use your diaphragm more.

They looked great, you know the drawings of the guys playing looked great and bits of string around their necks. So it didn't seem to be that difficult a thing to do, or that inaccessible.

Very much like that, and very much a loner, do you know and I didn't fit really into sport or all kind of group activities as a kid, I couldn't find a niche. And music was not really part of the kind of village curriculum it would, you know.

There's a desire in me to express something - to match what I hear in my head.

It is painful to relive things that have caused emotional crises or whatever and find ways to express that musically.

It's very dependent on your state of mind. And your emotional state as well. And a lot of it comes pouring out, you don't really have that much control with it.

Lately I've been running on faith.