[on what characteristic of musicians often makes them prone to wild living] A lot of creative people are vulnerable: they're just so focused on what they're doing. So it's quite viable to dumb out those feelings with substance or a just flat-out lifestyle

[observation, 2014, on the reconstitution of 'Fleetwood Mac'] There was no 'Oh, we better blow the trumpet and rally the reunion of the band'. It was sort of magical the way it happened.. It's sort of a very cool fable - half nightmare, half fairy-tale story

I have found out that I love to be really, really, really hot. It tells my little brain that I'm really doing it, like a rat experiment. So [when I perform] I have heaters all around me. My worst nightmare would be that the auditorium air conditioners are going.

[on what reminiscences he chose to emphasize in his memoir 'Play On'] Learning how to handle the huge theatre of my career and how almost everything I dreamed of literally came true, from me being this funny little creature who just wanted to play drums and play music.

I always joke - because I used to manage the band - that this is the worst-run franchise in rock'n'roll. If you look at what happened to us on paper, you'd say, 'It's simply not possible that these clowns can survive this'.

John McVie who plays bass with Fleetwood Mac is not only my best friend, he's also my musical best friend because he's formulated a style that accommodates this ever-changing partner in the rhythm section.

I'll never play exactly the same pattern on the bass drum on a song that I've been playing for 40 years. It's become the sound of our rhythm section.

[observation, 2013, on the recording 'Rumors'] It's this mutant thing. It shaped me as a person because we went through a damage, making that album. There's still a fascination about it: it's who we are and what we are, the reason why we made all that music. It forces you to think about yourself, how you've developed or undeveloped, screwed up or not, what you learned from that, and whether you have truly moved on from the hurt, fear and loathing.