Mark Knopfler quotes:

I even played bass for a while. Besides playing electric guitar, I'd also get asked to play some acoustic stuff. But, since I didn't have an acoustic guitar at the time, I used to borrow one from a friend so I could play folk joints.

My idea of heaven is a place where the Tyne meets the Delta, where folk music meets the blues.

While I was into many different types of music, and played with many different local groups, I really didn't have a band to call my own until Dire Straits was formed in 1977.

I don't like definitions, but if there is a definition of freedom, it would be when you have control over your reality to transform it, to change it, rather than having it imposed upon you. You can't really ask for more than.

As far as being a 'player's player,' you've only got to go to Nashville or Argentina and you can forget about it. The world is full of amazing guitar players, and you know it, and I know it...it's a humbling experience...

I'm also getting an Ovation Legend, because I like them so much.

While listening, to things like western swing, for instance, I'd work something out in my head, then play it on my National; not the same song, but one that captured the feeling of the original tune.

I'm not a collector, however, and I have no desire to own 50 or 60 guitars.

Last time I was sober, man I felt bad, Worst hangover that I ever had. It took six hamburgers, Scotch all night, Nicotine for breakfast just to put me right.

I don't really think of Dire Straits as a sound, you know. It. just depends on the song, and the stuff we're doing is so varied.

Juliet, when we made love, you used to cry. You said, "I love you like the stars above, I'll love you 'til I die". There's a place for us, you know the movie song. When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?

When you point your finger 'cause your plan fell through You got three more fingers pointing back at you!

Each song has its own secret that's different from another song, and each has its own life. Sometimes it has to be teased out, whereas other times it might come fast. There are no laws about songwriting or producing. It depends on what you're doing, not just who you're doing.

After a while, though, the group just wasn't a good vehicle for the songs I'd written.

...the music you make is shaped by what you play it on ... if you feel that you're not getting enough out of a song, change the instrument - go from an acoustic to an electric or vice versa, or try an open tuning ... do something to shake it up...

I was into playing American music, especially the blues.

I love Gibsons, and Nationals, too. There's something magical about them.

I just want to be able to play and make people feel good with what I do. When you're thinking that way, anything can happen. And, usually, what happens is good.

There's so many different worlds, so many different suns. And we have just one world, but we live in different ones.

My playing is fairly straightforward, really, and everything's pretty much standard no frills or special effects.

The music just tends to be a vehicle for that poetry.

Every guitar I own gets used and has its purpose.

A Strat was a thing of wonder .. when I was 14 or 15, the Shadows were a big influence, and they had the first Strats that came to England. I like to play all kinds of guitars, but I wasn't getting the sound I really wanted until I got a Stratocaster

There happened to be guitar classes at the college, and there was a guitar teacher there with whom I used to play. In addition, I also would go out into country schools and teach little kids basic guitar and singing a few times a week.

We prayed these wars would end all wars --In war we know is no romance.(Done With Bonaparte)

We prayed these wars would end all wars --In war we know is no romance."(Done With Bonaparte)

What I always try to do is to respond to the song; I've always rebelled against theory.

I bad a piano long before I bad a guitar, and the practice I got just playing those three chords in a basic 12-bar blues song was very important.

I left for the same reasons everyone leaves jobs that are no longer fulfilling their hopes and aspirations. I didn't see myself spending the rest of my life being a strummer for someone else's dreams. Whatever the opposite of regret is best describes how I've always felt about that decision - it opened me up to a million creative opportunities I needed to experience away from the bullshit and distorting mirrors that fame engenders.

I shoulda learned to play the guitar.

I used to go to the school folk club with my songs when I was only 13 or so and say "this is a traditional folk song" and sing it with a bad Irish accent to disguise the real source.

Sometimes you gotta be an s.o.b., you wanna make a dream reality

Sometimes you're the windshield; sometimes you're the bug.

Then came the churches, then came the schools, then came the lawyers, then came the rules.

There's so many different worlds...

Well, I was born in Scotland and spent the first six years of my life there. Then I went to Newcastle-On-Tyne in northeast England, close to Scotland.