Les Paul quotes:

Now I need to take a piece of wood and make it sound like the railroad track, but I also had to make it beautiful and lovable so that a person playing it would think of it in terms of his mistress, a bartender, his wife, a good psychiatrist - whatever.

I wanted something very dense, something that would sustain long and more pieces of wood that would be soft, sweet, for more of a mellow sound.

When I got my first guitar my fingers wouldn't go to the sixth string so I took off the big E and played with just five strings. I was only 6 or 7.

I used my mother's radio as a PA system. I'd take the telephone, the speaking part, and take those two leads off and lead them into the radio and the sound would come out of the speaker.

If I have to go around telling everyone how great I am, then there's something wrong with my act.

We go in there and we work on altering those ideas and in many cases go in different directions.

Of the whole bunch of guys who play hollow body guitar, I think Herb Ellis has the most drive

One minute we're over here, the next minute we're doing something completely different. But it's interesting because you are producing so many things you couldn't do with analog.

I have younger friends who don't work, and they aren't doing so well. My secret is to keep going, keep working.

As far as I'm concerned, I'm just a guitar player, and my job is to go out there and play and entertain and do my thing.

I never stop being amazed by all the different ways of playing the guitar and making it deliver a message.

It's not jazz as we know jazz here in America.

This guitar is such a pal. It's a psychiatrist. It's a doggone bartender. It's a housewife. This guy is everything. Whenever I find that I've got a problem, I'll go pick my guitar up and play. It's the greatest pal in the whole world.

To this day, no one has come up with a set of rules for originality. There aren't any.

When you just get mixed up & there's too much going on, then it's time to pick up your guitar.

The audience, they're not professionals. They just love music. It isn't necessary to play over their heads to be admired.

.. the guitar is just a wonderful instrument. It's everything: a bartender, a psychiatrist, a housewife. It's everything, but it's elusive

..I wanted to create music that was so different that my mother could tell me from anyone else

A guitar is something you can hold and love and it's never going to bug you. But here's the secret about the guitar - it's defiant. It will never let you conquer it. The more you get involved with it, the more you realize how little you know.

I don't know of a guitar player that has only one guitar. They're never happy with one. I'm never happy with just one of them. I woke up and ended up with six, even if you can only play one at a time!

I think the most important thing about playing is to walk out with confidence, look the people right in the eye and say 'Here I am,' and go and do your thing. As soon as they know you're confident, they're confident. As long as you adjust to them you're not in trouble. You should eyeball them, find out what they want, and give it to them. They didn't pay to come out and look at the tapestries.

If you're in the U.S. and talk to someone on the phone who's in Iraq, you'll experience sound delay. It isn't long, but the sound has to go to a satellite and back, it's used for everything. I'm proud to have that be something I invented.

My chops were not as fast... [but] I just learned more on what was in my mind than what was in my chops. I learned a long time ago that one note can go a long way if it's the right one, and it will probably whip the guy with twenty notes

No, working is what will keep you alive.

Paint pictures with sound. First, find your white-the deepest, roundest sound you can play on the guitar. Then, find your black-which is the most extreme tonal difference from white you can play. Now, just pick the note where you've got white, pick it where you've got black, and then find all those colors in between. Get those colors down, and you'll be able to express almost any emotion on the guitar.?

You can't go to the store and buy a good ear and rhythm.

Every setback might be the very thing that makes you carry on and fight all the harder and become much better.