Top 100 Eric Clapton Quotes
#1. 'My Father's Eyes' is very personal. I realized that the closest I ever came to looking in my father's eyes was when I looked into my son's eyes.
Eric Clapton
#2. I used to do crazy things that people would bail me out of, and I'm just grateful that I survived. But the music got very lost; I didn't know where I was going, and I didn't really care. I was more into just having a good time, and I think it showed.
Eric Clapton
#3. If you hand me a guitar, I'll play the blues. That's the place I automatically go.
Eric Clapton
#4. I know there will be no more tears in heaven.
Eric Clapton
#5. I can't play long solos anymore without boring myself.
Eric Clapton
#6. Loose ladies on the road will drive you crazy, every no, becomes a maybe.
Eric Clapton
#7. Risk is trying to control something you are powerless over.
Eric Clapton
#8. But the guitar, when you think about it, is the most versatile, really. I mean you can pick it up and take it with you wherever you go.
Eric Clapton
#9. The first guitar I ever had was a gut-string Spanish guitar, and I couldn't really get the hang of it. I was only 13, and I talked my grandparents into buying it for me. I tried and tried and tried, but got nowhere with it.
Eric Clapton
#10. It's been very important throughout my career that I've met all the guys I've copied, because at each stage they've said, 'Don't play like me, play like you.'
Eric Clapton
#11. 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.
Eric Clapton
#12. All along this path I tread, my heart betrays my weary head, with nothing but my love to save, from the cradle to the grave ...
Eric Clapton
#13. You were at school and you were pimply and no one wanted to know you. You get into a group and you've got thousands of chicks there.
Eric Clapton
#14. And if I don't be there by morning, she'll know that I must've spent the night in jail.
Eric Clapton
#15. In my lowest moments, the only reason I didn't commit suicide was that I knew I wouldn't be able to drink any more if I was dead.
Eric Clapton
#16. My dedication to my music has driven everyone away. I've had girlfriends, but I always end up on my own. I don't particularly like it, but I don't see a way 'round it.
Eric Clapton
#17. I've got the god given talent or the god given opportunity better put, to let that out in a harmless way you know, and I don't know what it does to you, I don't really know.
Eric Clapton
#18. I thought, 'My God, this is like Buddy Guy on acid.'
Eric Clapton
#19. My driving philosophy about making music is that you can reduce it all down to one note if that note is played with the right kind of sincerity.
Eric Clapton
#20. A British pressing with a compilation of the best stuff really, I mean actually not only that but, these were all kind of semi hits for the people on it in America.
Eric Clapton
#21. And I don't like having my picture taken. I'm almost like an old African in that sense. I think it steals a bit of the soul.
Eric Clapton
#22. It sounds strange for me to be saying this, but I've come around to the idea that sex really is for procreation.
Eric Clapton
#23. I just like the company of beautiful women. I have a weakness in that department.
Eric Clapton
#24. The first band I identified with from Chicago was the Muddy Waters band.
Eric Clapton
#25. Let it grow, let it grow,
Let it blossom let it flow.
In the sun, the rain, the snow,
Love is lovely, let it grow.
Eric Clapton
#26. Music survives everything, and like God, it is always present. It needs no help, and suffers no hindrance.
Eric Clapton
#27. Whatever your standing in life, the most important thing is behaving in ways that help other people. It's the same with music. I am a servant of the music ... and if I get caught up in ego, I'll lose everything .. it'll burn and that's a guarantee ...
Eric Clapton
#28. The music scene as I look at it today is a little different from when I was growing up. The percentages are roughly the same - 95 percent rubbish, 5 percent pure.
Eric Clapton
#29. I did play a lot of fingerstyle when I first started playing. I could never really find the right combination of flatpick or fingerpick, so playing fingerstyle is really the easiest way - though it's quite strenuous on the fingertips.
Eric Clapton
#30. I feel wonderful because I see the love light in your eyes, and the wonder of it all is you just don't realize how much I love you.
Eric Clapton
#31. For me there is something primitively soothing about this music, and it went straight to my nervous system, making me feel ten feet tall.
Eric Clapton
#32. Up until I became a father, it was all about self-obsession. But then I learned exactly what it's all about: the delight of being a servant.
Eric Clapton
#33. Like a fool, I fell in love with you, Turned my whole world upside down
Eric Clapton
#34. 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.
Eric Clapton
#36. This moment in time, on this tour, you know, I'm discovering a lot of new things. And to be 45 and doing that, it's a mixture of pleasure and pain, I can assure you.
Eric Clapton
#37. Time can bring you down, time can bend your knees.
Eric Clapton
#38. 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.
Eric Clapton
#39. When all the original blues guys are gone, you start to realize that someone has to tend to the tradition. I recognize that I have some responsibility to keep the music alive, and it's a pretty honorable position to be in.
Eric Clapton
#40. There are people these days who can do things on the guitar which are beyond my reach. There's one guy who plays with Queen who can do things I would dream of doing. I sincerely mean that.
Eric Clapton
#42. An obsession is where something will not leave your mind.
Eric Clapton
#43. But I did go to music really early on, even when I was 4 or 5, I was responding to music probably in ways other kids were not.
Eric Clapton
#44. Music will always find its way to us, with or without business, politics, religion, or any other bullshit attached.
Eric Clapton
#45. One summer I remember, I got exposed to Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly and Buddy Holly was a very very big, made a very big impression on me. Because of a lot of things, you know, the way he looked and his charisma.
Eric Clapton
#46. It was stumbling on to really the bible of the blues, you know, and a very powerful drug to be introduced to us and I absorbed it totally, and it changed my complete outlook on music.
Eric Clapton
#47. My selective memory of what drinking was like told me that standing at the bar in a pub, on a summer's evening with a long, tall glass of lager and lime was heaven, and I chose not to remember the nights on which I had sat with a bottle of vodka, a gram of coke and a shotgun, contemplating suicide.
Eric Clapton
#48. Our love will rule in this kingdom we have made.
Eric Clapton
#49. I never met Johnny Rotten, and I didn't want to meet Johnny Rotten.
Eric Clapton
#50. I never set myself too high a goal. It was always tone and feeling, for me.
Eric Clapton
#51. Yeah, I wanted to know where they got it from, what it was all about, you know, and it seemed to strike something in me that was you know rearing it's head and I still don't know what that is.
Eric Clapton
#53. Oh yeah, I mean, it wasn't a very good guitar, most good guitars have got thrust rods in the necks that you can adjust or that'll keep them in shape, you know keep them straight. This one just, well it turned into a bow and arrow after a couple of months.
Eric Clapton
#54. Only ask and you will get what you are needing, the rest is up to you.
Eric Clapton
#55. One of the most beneficial things I've ever learned is how to keep my mouth shut.
Eric Clapton
#56. Although they can do it all the time, you know, they're far better than me, on a musically, on a theoretical music level. You know, they're out of my league.
Eric Clapton
#57. They found our hero in the gutter with a diamond ring and a gun.
Eric Clapton
#58. The thing about pessimism is that in most cases it's nothing more than a front behind which a body can hide its most sweetful yet painful hopes. please forgive mine.
Eric Clapton
#59. I just managed to convince my grandmother that it was a worth while that was something to do, you know, and when I did finally get the guitar, it didn't seem that difficult to me, to be able to make a good noise out of it.
Eric Clapton
#60. There's a desire in me to express something - to match what I hear in my head.
Eric Clapton
#61. Every time you pick up your guitar to play, play as if it's the last time.
Eric Clapton
#62. 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
#63. When I look for what I'm going to listen to I go backwards. I'm always going the other way you see. Most people are trying to figure out 'how do I get in the fast lane going that way?'. I'm going in the other direction. I wanna find the oldest thing to do.
Eric Clapton
#64. I sought my father in the world of the black musician, because it contained wisdom, experience, sadness and loneliness. I was not ever interested in the music of boys. From my youngest years, I was interested in the music of men.
Eric Clapton
#65. I got a problem, can you relate? I got a woman calling love hate.
Eric Clapton
#67. The point of being at home is to be with my family as much as possible.
Eric Clapton
#68. I admire Eddie Van Halen and Steve Lukather, but they might blow me away quite easily if we were to jam together.
Eric Clapton
#70. You can't mastermind everything. You'll go crazy. Just show up and play.
Eric Clapton
#71. From the beginning, I knew intuitively that if nothing else, music was safe, and that nobody could tell me anything about it. Music didn't need a middleman, whereas all the other things in school needed some kind of explanation.
Eric Clapton
#72. 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.
Eric Clapton
#73. I feel a real need to observe a level of propriety in what I'm handing out. Instead of me just venting or spilling my guts, I've got to consider how it's going to affect people. How it's going to affect me, as well. Because it's like a cycle.
Eric Clapton
#74. I've always wanted the sound of Muddy Waters' early records - only louder
Eric Clapton
#75. Musically, he was like an old man in a boy's skin.
Eric Clapton
#76. 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.
Eric Clapton
#77. 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.
Eric Clapton
#78. Watching him, I understood for the first time how you could really live music, how you could listen to it completely and make it come alive, so that it was part of your life.
Eric Clapton
#79. I wish I could write easily. I'm one of those guys who's visited by the muse when things are dire.
Eric Clapton
#80. I grew up playing in clubs - that's my spiritual stomping ground.
Eric Clapton
#81. The blues are what I've turned to, what has given me inspiration and relief in all the trials of my life.
Eric Clapton
#82. In playing, I suppose my greatest gift was to express the way I felt or the willingness to express myself.
Eric Clapton
#83. I remember hearing Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Big Bill Broonzy, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley and not really knowing anything about the geography or the culture of the music. But for some reason it did something to me - it resonated.
Eric Clapton
#84. I couldn't believe how good Jimi Hendrix was It was a really difficult thing for me to deal with, but I just had to surrender and say, 'This is fantastic.'
Eric Clapton
#85. It's taken me to be an older guy, an old man, to have an old man's voice. Because I only liked old men's voices. As a kid, I didn't like pip-squeaked singers.
Eric Clapton
#86. Give me a guitar and I'll play; give me a stage and I'll perform; give me an auditorium and I'll fill it.
Eric Clapton
#87. The toughest thing about being a celebrity, I suppose, is being polite when I don't want to be.
Eric Clapton
#88. 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.
Eric Clapton
#89. To sing in a lower key is harder work. You have to use your diaphragm more.
Eric Clapton
#90. My original interests and intentions in guitar playing were primarily created on quality of tone, for instance, the way the instrument could be made to echo or simulate the human voice.
Eric Clapton
#91. I'd love to knock an audience cold with one note, but what do you do for the rest of the evening?
Eric Clapton
#92. I think everybody has their own way of looking at their lives as some kind of pilgrimage. Some people will see their role as a pilgrim in terms of setting up a fine family, or establishing a business inheritance. Everyone's got their own definition. Mine, I suppose, is to know myself.
Eric Clapton
#93. Well, I think part of my gift, or if I have one, is that I love listening.
Eric Clapton
#94. In terms of scale or stature, I believe that if Robert Johnson was reincarnated, he is probably BB King. Maybe it would be worth investigating the appropriate dates to see if this is even a remote possibility.
Eric Clapton
#95. [ 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.
Eric Clapton
#96. I saw you walking with your other man today. If I catch you one more time, I'm gonna blow you both away.
Eric Clapton
#97. 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.
Eric Clapton
#98. I remember when I thought of singing as the bit that went between the guitar playing - something I couldn't wait to get out of the way. Singing was originally like a chore that I didn't really enjoy.
Eric Clapton
#99. When I was in Nashville, Tennessee in 1970 with Derek and the Dominoes, I went into this shop and they had a rack of Strats and Teles - all going for $100.00 each. I bought a handfull and made Blackie out of the body from one, the neck from another, and so on
Eric Clapton
#100. I like solitude. I like the anomalous life. I like a quiet life.
Eric Clapton
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