Quotes from Andy Summers

Actually, I think my hands are in the best shape they've ever been in terms of what I can do.

I actually think I play better now than I've ever played.

I am pretty embroiled in moving on and moving forward with music.

For me, the guitar synthesizer is a great writing instrument.

The most obvious thing you can't do with a guitar synthesizer is to really sound like a guitar.

More recently, I used guitar synthesizer extensively on the two albums I did with Robert Fripp.

It's been very hard for the guitar as a serious synthesizer to compete with keyboards.

If the guitar synthesizer is really going to stand as a synthesizer on its own, it needs to develop a more characteristic sound; I don' think it's gotten there yet.

I am pretty embroiled in moving on and moving forward with music.

Death is never more than a breath away from the act of playing music. Each note on a guitar represents a small curve: birth, life, and death-and then you start over.

What if I hadn't sold my guitar to Eric? Maybe it would all have turned out differently, and the Les Paul would have been merely another interesting historical clunker rather than a cultural icon.

at least once in my life make something that would go around the world, create a lick that guitarists everywhere would play, be number one in America, be heard at weddings, bar mitzvahs, births, funerals, be adapted into the repertoire of brass bands in the north of England, and make my mum and dad proud.

I think rock records tend to be very expensive.

There was a period when I'd just come out of college where I'd been playing classical guitar and I suddenly realised that it wasn't what I wanted to do with the rest of my life.

I spend a lot of time working as a painter and in my studio I go from upstairs where I paint to downstairs where I play and record, so I get this thing crossing over.

I was totally into jazz in my teens.

It is not very practical in today's world when you tour all over the place having a big band.

What I wanted to do was play the guitar but I don't like instrumental rock. I think it is tripe.

It accumulates over the years and I've led so many bands of my own now and forced myself into new situations... You would hope that you play better and better - until you just get too feeble to do it anymore.

I'm just trying to avoid any sort of generic kind of music - I don't want to do generic jazz or fusion.

I would like to play with electronic keyboards again.

My favorite sounds are the high, spacey ones that are very ambient.

I'm better for it and I prefer to keep things simple and see what sounds I can get out of my head and hands rather than relying on a sound that someone else created.

I think we are coming to a new era where people will record much faster.