Les Paul Quotations

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

There are times when you want to go where you used to go and you can't go there.

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 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.

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.

You learn fast from others how to be an entertainer as well as a musician; you don't necessarily have to get out there and just play - you can be an entertainer, too.

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

My first guitar came from Sears & Roebuck and I believe it was $3.95.

If it wasn't for them, I wouldn't be there. They're the ones.

We're the first non-U.S.-based team to be requested, ... They're going to be helping as many people as they can.

We're switching the sounds, not so much the tone of the instrument. And when things seem impossible, it's back to grade school, soldering, re-developing - always building.

The worst is over. I am doing better. I am grateful to all of my friends for their thoughts and I will be back shortly making them laugh.

The worst is over. I am doing better.

Steve used to walk through the room I stayed in to get to the bathroom. One day, he must have been 5 years old, Steve said to me, 'Are you Mr. Paul?' I said yes. He was looking at my guitar and I asked him, 'Do you play guitar?' And he said, 'A little bit.' So I handed him my guitar and he played it and I said, 'Gee, you're good. Someday you'll be doing what I'm doing.' I was his mentor . . . but then I watched him take everything he admired and copied and learned and become Steve Miller. He's a very, very good blues guitarist.

They've taken the, the licks and the ideas and applied 'em differently, so it's very amusing, or very interesting, to me to see how they've changed it and made it work, made it so new and different. It's always a pleasure to hear someone creating something new.

I'll be well shortly and back on that stage, believe me.

If Waukesha needs more, I have more. All they've got to do is ask.

I have younger friends who dont work, and they arent doing so well. My secret is to keep going, keep working.

It has to be said, we must all own up that without Les Paul, generations of flash little punks like us would be in jail or cleaning toilets. This man, by his genius, made the road that we still travel today. I don't know how he did it, but I'm so grateful he did, said Keith Richards, as quoted in the

I feel like a condemned building with a new flagpole on it. It's exciting for us.

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.

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!

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

No, working is what will keep you alive.

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.

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.?