My favorite travel pastime is writing music, either with my guitar or on my computer.

My ideal travel companions are my surfboard, wetsuit, and guitar.

As a teenager, I used to travel everywhere with my guitar. I appreciated the fact it was with me, but it was always an absolute pain to carry around - even though, in those days, you could take in on a plane as hand luggage.

I always travel with my guitar. I take it myself - with me in my hand. I don't like to send it by cargo because it's dangerous. There is no way I would do that.

That's why I like the Steinberger guitars. They're easy to travel with... and they don't get messed up by the airlines.

Some people are drawn naturally - there are natural guitarists, and there are natural piano players, and I think guitar implies travel, a sort of footloose gypsy existence. You grab your bag and you go to the next town.

Where I grew up, I could be a punk rocker and a jock. But in college, it became apparent that those two worlds didn't mix. When I brought my guitar back to school after Thanksgiving break, a friend handed me his bass and said, 'Listen to the Ramones.'

I have spent over 60 years bent over a guitar and to know that I wrote 70 compositions that masters have recorded, that makes me feel so good and full, and proud and thankful to the good Lord.

One of the things I've always liked about my husband is he's very good at lots of stuff. He was an English teacher when I met him. He wrote poetry and played the guitar. As time went on, he decided to go into economics, so he's very analytical and mathematical in addition to his artsy side.

There happened to be guitar classes at the college, and there was a guitar teacher there with whom I used to play. In addition, I also would go out into country schools and teach little kids basic guitar and singing a few times a week.

I was bought an electric guitar when I was 12, but my guitar teacher beat me up. I didn't like guitar lessons and I got quite bored. My teacher was obviously bored giving me lessons, and one day I offered him a liquorice toffee, but he didn't answer. So I threw it at him, it hit him in the face, and he sort of beat me up.

I first started actually playing guitar when I was eleven years old. I had some neighborhood friends who told me they were starting a band and needed a guitarist. I told my folks, and by the next day I had a guitar lesson set up with a local teacher.

My guitar was loud as hell, and I had no sympathy for anybody else.

And then I got into sports and gave my guitar to my brother Jeff who was just a little kid at that time.

Someone told me the smile on my face gets bigger when I play the guitar.

I never went out to make the music that people would like. I mean, I tried, because every teenager tries to do that. But in my heart, I'd always come from gigs where I played upbeat guitar covers and I'd start writing sad songs on the piano.

For the longest time, I didn't even want to admit I was serious about music. Before the Shins, I would tell myself, 'Oh, I'm going to figure something out someday.' I had this romantic vision of being this old dude maybe making guitars or something.

I always wanted a guitar. I always wanted to be a cowboy singer because I also listened to Hank Williams, and he would always sing these neat romantic songs.

I really respect Zakk Wylde's guitar playing and his compulsive work ethic.

A bass player has to think and play like a bass player. A drummer has to play and think like a drummer, and stay out of the way of the vocalist. The guitar player has to respect everybody else.

My brother, who's ten years younger than me, worked with me in the studio when he was very young. He's a guitar player and does programming as well. To have the working and personal relationship coincide has been very natural.

I saw the Village as a place you could escape to, to express yourself. When I first went there, I wrote and performed poetry. Then I drew portraits for a couple of years. It took a while before I thought about picking up a guitar.

One of our biggest pet peeves is listening to bands that use harmony guitars for the sake of it. If you can't figure out how do something different than Maiden, UFO, or even Boston, then what's the point?

My parents worked for Exxon, and they gave me every chance to take part in music. I took guitar lessons, and I was in the choir at school.