Brian May famous quotes

Each gig should be unique. You're always treading that line between keeping yourself fresh and giving people something they want to hear
-- Brian May

#Unique #People #Giving

When I'm gone, people will no doubt remember me for Queen, but I would much rather be remembered for attempting to change the way we treat our fellow creatures
-- Brian May

#Queens #People #Doubt

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

#Player #Albums #Orchestra

Everybody thought I was a bit of an eccentric for wanting to be out there looking at the stars, but I still do
-- Brian May

#Stars #Eccentric #Stills

There is no way that you can ever really repeat something. I have this great belief that the magic of the moment can never be recaptured.
-- Brian May

#Magic #Way #Belief

I really thought I was pretty good before I saw Hendrix, and then I thought: Yeah, not so good.
-- Brian May

#Saws #Hendrix #Yeah

I'm into paradoxes. I wanted to make an album about them, but the group told me I was a pretentious fart. They were right.
-- Brian May

#Groups #Albums #Fart

The biggest emotion in creation is the bridge to optimism.
-- Brian May

#Bridges #Optimism #Emotion

I had this big thing about guitar harmonies. I wanted to be the first to put proper three-part harmonies onto a record. That was an achievement.
-- Brian May

#Guitar #Achievement #Three

There's nothing I'm embarrassed about
-- Brian May

#Embarrassed

A good video can make all the difference
-- Brian May

#Differences #Video

I'm pretty basic as far as technique is concerned. I don't use many gadgets, and I like the sound my guitar makes, anyway.
-- Brian May

#Guitar #Gadgets #Technique

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.
-- Brian May

#Thinking #Opposites #People

The guitar has a kind of grit and excitement possessed by nothing else
-- Brian May

#Guitar #Grit #Excitement

I despise the Lottery. There's less chance of you becoming a millionaire than there is of getting hit on the head by a passing asteroid.
-- Brian May

#Funny #Money #Asteroids

Queen songs are not about the life of a rock star - they tend to be about the lives of normal people, which is why I think the songs connect so much. We're very lucky that they seemingly connect with every generation.
-- Brian May

#Song #Stars #Queens

In print, people can do anything to you. Everything you do is picked apart. People love it; they're waiting for you to make a mistake.
-- Brian May

#Mistake #People #Waiting

I'm not a person for sitting on beaches. What would I do?
-- Brian May

#Beach #Sitting #Persons

Queen songs tend to be about very personal things: personal dreams and personal ambitions.
-- Brian May

#Dream #Song #Queens

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.
-- Brian May

#Rocks #Champion #Done

Astronomy's much more fun when you're not an astronomer
-- Brian May

#Fun #Astronomy #Astronomers

There are times when I flick through magazines and think I'm in danger of becoming a prisoner of my own hair.
-- Brian May

#Thinking #Hair #Becoming

Every time I listen to Jeff Beck my whole view of guitar changes radically. He's way, way out, doing things you never expect.
-- Brian May

#Guitar #Views #Way

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

#People #Intuition #Listening

The Wedding March has a bit of a death march in it.
-- Brian May

#Wedding #Wedding Day #March

George Harrison was a fabulous, fabulous, fabulous guitarist, and a wonderful example of what a rock star should be. I totally revered him as an innovator. He was always fresh, daring, magnificently melodic, full of spiritual quality, and totally conscious of the chord structure beneath the solo. And he had the courage to play simple. He never took refuge in effects, or tried to impress with speed. I hope he knew how much we all loved and respected him.
-- Brian May

#Spiritual #Stars #Simple

For a time I didn't want to answer any questions about Queen. I'd like to be viewed as something alive and relevant, not some fossil.
-- Brian May

#Queens #Answers #Alive

There are a lot of things in Queen albums that you don't expect; that's why we threw them in
-- Brian May

#Queens #Albums

I like a big neck – thick, flat and wide. I lacquered the fingerboard with Rustin's Plastic Coating. The tremolo is interesting in that the arm's made from an old bicycle saddle bag carrier, the knob at the end's off a knitting needle and the springs are valve springs from an old motorbike.
-- Brian May

#Spring #Knitting #Interesting

This man (FreddieMercury) truly possessed the greatest voice in the history of rock. Journalists, culture experts and analysts have already made several hundred comments on this topic and nothing can be added here.
-- Brian May

#Men #Voice #Rocks

Sanctions always hurt the poor, the weak, the children.
-- Brian May

#Hurt #Children #Glitter

I'm a much better musician than astronomer. I think the world got the right choice.
-- Brian May

#Thinking #Choices #Musician

I just want to be able to play as fast as my brain goes, and my brain doesn't go all that fast.
-- Brian May

#Music #Guitar #Play

Amazing uke playing to be relished.
-- Brian May

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

#Surfing #Surf

I'd put a lot of work into playing guitar, and was thinking I was pretty damn good. But Hendrix came along and destroyed everyone.
-- Brian May

#Thinking #Guitar #Hendrix

Not for a million - years. I mean, I like the INXS boys, but I found the process very degrading, really. Reality television has eaten away at our standards of excellence. I don't like this whole culture, which has evolved, of TV being the king.
-- Brian May

#Kings #Mean #Boys

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.
-- Brian May

#Swimming #Garden #Lucky

I spent 20 years of my life building up Queen, and now Im spending years of my life trying to get away from it.
-- Brian May

#Queens #Years #Trying

I don't think anybody comes close to The Beatles, including Oasis
-- Brian May

#Thinking #Oasis

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
-- Brian May

#Queens #Energy #Momentum

At the moment the Queen stuff does sell really well, but there's no guarantee it'll go on forever
-- Brian May

#Queens #Forever #Doe

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
-- Brian May

#Creativity #Animal #Months

To my mind Keep Yourself Alive was never really satisfactory. Never had that magic that it should have had.
-- Brian May

#Magic #Mind #Alive

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

#Play #Important #Vacuums

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

#Dad #Guitar #Ideas

People have been rumouring that Queen are going to split up for the last eight years at least. I've got some great cuttings at home from people saying 'One thing is certain, Queen will no longer exist in a year's time.' And that was in 1973.
-- Brian May

#Queens #Home #Cutting

On the first few albums the songs would grow into strange shapes.
-- Brian May

#Song #Albums #Shapes

I was an incurable romantic then, same as I am now. I was always pining away after somebody
-- Brian May

#Pining

The guitar was my weapon, my shield to hide behind.
-- Brian May

#Guitar #Weapons #Shields