I’m really terrible with small children; they’re small, noisy, irritating, damp and soggy.

It was instilled in me that the money I was given was not to be lost or spent on any other purpose.

All the time I was playing the flute, the lines, the solos, the riffs, the construction, were based on my guitar skills. I did not play the flute to exploit its natural faculties, but I...

A lot of pop music is about stealing pocket money from children.

Just once I would like to persuade the audience not to wear any article of blue denim. If only they could see themselves in a pair of brown corduroys like mine instead of this awful,...

I think the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, first of all, has got to be put into the context of being an American cultural showcase. It’s there to be a museum showcase of all...

Not to be mean about it, but some great rock and rollers, like Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry, are pretty one-dimensional.

I don’t think people really do listen. We plug into music, and we have short attention spans. We tend to download individual tracks from iTunes rather than a whole album. We buy music DVDs and...

If Jesus Christ came back today, He and I would get into our brown corduroys and go to the nearest jean store and overturn the racks of blue denim.

Most of what I’ve written songs about are things that come out of the confusing emotional, spiritual and psychological period of time when you’re going through puberty.

I’m very motivated by the occasional creative payoff that comes when something goes really well, be it a song, a recording or performance. The payoff is enormous – when you get it. Most of the...

I was quite keen on silviculture, the growing of trees, and that was something I gave a lot of thought to. Maybe I could’ve gone in that direction. But it just so happened that while...

I suppose when I started playing guitar, it was the means to an end. I never thought of myself as a fully fledged guitar instrumentalist. And my early excursions on the electric guitar were curtailed...

It’s only the giving that makes you what you are.

When I was a young boy, I preferred cats to dogs. From the age of seven or eight onwards I just felt more comfortable with cats. And I felt more comfortable with girls, I didn’t...

Prog didn’t really go away. Just took a catnap in the late Seventies. A new generation of fans discovered it, and a whole new array of bands and solo artists took it on into the...

I’ve always felt that some of my best lyrics are less than three minutes long, and it’s great when you can do that – be succinct and get the message across in a simple, clear...

When I was in my teenage years, I went to sign up as a cadet entrant to the police force but was at the very last moment rejected, just as I was about to sign...

I can never make up my mind if I’m happy being a flute player, or if I wish I were Eric Clapton.

I was always more interested in the ultimate live performance rather than the recording for its own sake. And, for the audience too, that thrill of – just being there.

There seems to be an inclination among rock musicians to be very carefree with money, but I negotiate the best flight and hotel deals on our tours to maximise the band’s income – I don’t...

As a songwriter, you tend to develop your own style, your own technique, based around what it is you’re trying to write and perform, in terms of your own music. So a way of evolving...

Touring is what you make it. I like to organise as much as possible myself.

I was not a great guitarist, so I sold my 1960 Fender Stratocaster in exchange for a Shure Microphone, made in Chicago, and a flute.

I’m all in favor of banks that play their part in community endeavors, private individuals looking for loans, people who want to start up a little business, and that’s what banks are for.

There’s always going to be a little bit of autobiographical content to everything. It’s how you lend some authority to what you write – you give it that weight by drawing on your direct experiences...

I don’t really set out to please anybody, and I don’t think I ever have. I have occasionally been encouraged to try to write something specifically for the purpose of releasing it as a single...

Seek that which within lies waiting to begin the fight of your life that is everyday.

The flute was an alternative to being a small fish in an increasingly bigger pool filled with a number of great guitar players.

Most people, from their second album on, find it much harder to be as spontaneously creative as they were with their first couple of records, and some people only have one thing that they do.

‘Aqualung’ marks the point at which I had the confidence as a songwriter and as a guitar player to actually pick up and play the guitar and be at the forefront of the band. It’s...

I don’t think successful musicians were really put on this planet in order to have a great time, pat themselves on the back and say, ‘Oh, what a clever boy I am!’ I think that,...

Classical music only really came into my life in 1969. I wish I had heard classical music and church music when I was a teenager or even as a child.

I think we always view people who make us feel uncomfortable and appear to intrude on our middle-class cozy space, we view them with, if not hostility, at least suspicion, discomfort, embarrassment.

I make up my own mind in light of available facts, with my own experience and a sense of personal ethics.

I think I’ve owned all the models of iPods so far. And these days between my iPod, iPhone and my personal laptop computer, I’m someone who is very, very grateful for all the ways to...

I feel the audience has a right to know if some of the money they’re spending is going to a certain cause, and reassuring them the money is going to where it’s supposed to be...

I’m not one for Sudoku or crosswords – the thing that fires my little brain is doing tour budgets.

As a musician, life is not over just because you are getting older, and so I find retirement a very frightening and dark thought.

I think it’s really the job of the composer, the artist, the painter, the writer to present people with options. I’m just really reflecting the thoughts and actions around me.

In writing lyrics – well, for me, anyway – it’s about getting into character, you know? ‘Who is writing this?’ In the case of the original ‘Thick As A Brick,’ supposedly a precocious, very young...

I kind of like the idea of living a rather ordinary life as a shopkeeper, and I examine that possibility as one of the outcomes of the young Gerald Bostock growing older.

In most cases, my favorite Jethro Tull songs will be determined by how I feel about them as live performance songs, not by the recorded identity.

When I was a teenager, I really didn’t like loud rock music. I listened to jazz and blues and folk music. I’ve always preferred acoustic music. And it was only, I suppose, by the time...

I’m very much an observer and a conduit of thoughts and ideas.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame traditionally has had a management style that is very supportive of American talent, first and foremost, over everything else. And I think that’s right and proper.

It’s nice to be recognized, but it’s not great to have it too conspicuously recognized, if you see what I mean. Gold records on the wall, or titles after your name, it’s just not something…...

Our politicians may fail us, but Status Quo always delivers on the promise.

If you’re gonna use simile, analogy, metaphor, be descriptive and have some flowery adjectives and a few odd nouns and some engaging bits of dialogue or sentiment, then you’re sort of writing a novel, really....

I’ve always been fond of acoustic music.