"You know, most people, they want to go to Hollywood. They want to be a star. They want to be a rock star. That thought never entered any of our minds, the Van Halen family."

"Before the operation on my left hand I wasn't able to stretch my fingers open all the way. I've never had very big hands, but I could do the splits with them. Eventually I couldn't any more. I had a twisted tendon in my little finger that prevented me from being able to stretch."

"On 'Van Halen,' I was a young punk, and everything revolved around the fastest kid in town, gunslinger attitude. But I'd say that at the time of 'Fair Warning,' I started concentrating more on songwriting. But I guess in most people's minds I'm just a gunslinger."

"'For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge' took a year to record that's why the playing on it might sound somewhat labored. 'Balance,' on the other hand, was written and recorded in only four months, so the whole process was quicker and more immediate."

"Poetry “is the suggestion, by the imagination, of noble grounds for the noble emotions.”"

"A poem begins as a lump in the throat, a sense of wrong, a homesickness, a lovesickness."

"Art is the elimination of the unnecessary."

"Poetry has done enough when it charms, but prose must also convince."