Eric Clapton quotes

Born
30 March 1945, Ripley, Surrey, England.

Occupation
Musician, singer, songwriter.

Eric Clapton is an English musician, singer and songwriter.

Risk is trying to control something you are powerless over.
– Eric Clapton

I’d love to knock an audience cold with one note, but what do you do for the rest of the evening?
– Eric Clapton

You can’t mastermind everything. You’ll go crazy. Just show up and play.
– Eric Clapton

The toughest thing about being a celebrity, I suppose, is being polite when I don’t want to be.
– Eric Clapton

I never met Johnny Rotten, and I didn’t want to meet Johnny Rotten.
– Eric Clapton

Given the choice between accomplishing something and just lying around, I’d rather lie around. No contest.
– Eric Clapton

There’s a desire in me to express something – to match what I hear in my head.
– Eric Clapton

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

The first band I identified with from Chicago was the Muddy Waters band.
– Eric Clapton

One of the most beneficial things I’ve ever learned is how to keep my mouth shut.
– Eric Clapton

Plant your love and let it grow.
– Eric Clapton

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

I don’t have half the nerves there that I have anywhere else.
– Eric Clapton

Before you accuse me, take a look at yourself.
– Eric Clapton

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

Music survives everything, and like God, it is always present. It needs no help, and suffers no hindrance.
– Eric Clapton

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

In playing, I suppose my greatest gift was to express the way I felt or the willingness to express myself.
– Eric Clapton

I don’t know if I believe in luck. I think I’m very fortunate.
– Eric Clapton

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

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.
– Eric Clapton

The point of being at home is to be with my family as much as possible.
– Eric Clapton

An obsession is where something will not leave your mind.
– Eric Clapton

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

Music became a healer for me.
– Eric Clapton

I often enjoy singing in an acoustic setting more than an amplified one.
– Eric Clapton

I am, and always will be, a blues guitarist.
– Eric Clapton

Well, I think part of my gift, or if I have one, is that I love listening.
– Eric Clapton

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.
– Eric Clapton

I grew up playing in clubs – that’s my spiritual stomping ground.
– Eric Clapton

It’s been up to me to inspire me.
– Eric Clapton

Every time you pick up your guitar to play, play as if it’s the last time.
– Eric Clapton

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

Yeah, and I went straight into a fantasy world. Just stepped straight into the abyss. You know, I was gone and kids used to walk past my front room, cause I lived on the green.
– Eric Clapton

I like solitude. I like the anomalous life. I like a quiet life.
– Eric Clapton

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

The blues are what I’ve turned to, what has given me inspiration and relief in all the trials of my life.
– Eric Clapton

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

I think I deliberately sold out a couple of times. I picked the songs that I thought would do well in the marketplace, even though I didn’t really love the song.
– Eric Clapton

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

I wish I could write easily. I’m one of those guys who’s visited by the muse when things are dire.
– Eric Clapton