Life is too short to do the things you don't love doing.
Engineering stimulates the mind. Kids get bored easily. They have got to get out and get their hands dirty: make things, dismantle things, fix things. When the schools can offer that, you'll have an engineer for life.
If heavy metal bands ruled the world, we'd be a lot better off.
My dad always told me, 'I don't care what you do. Just aim to be the best at it. Even if it's the world's best window cleaner.'
In my teenage years I was put off the idea of a career in flying, because I'd convinced myself that you had to be a boffin with degrees in maths and physics, which were my weakest subjects.
I think the best way to find out about something is to try to do it to the max. A lot of people take up a hobby or sport and then find an excuse not to carry on with it. Once I start something, I won't stop until I'm as good at it as I'll ever be.
The joke in aviation is, 'If you want to make a million, you'd better start with £10m.'
I don't like being recognised, I have no interest in being famous at all, I just do what I do. If I could be like Captain Kirk and beam myself up and then beam myself down, I would!
Teachers need to be more inspirational. But it's also up to engineering to make itself more interesting.
Apart from death and taxes, the one thing that's certain in this life is that I'll never be a fashion icon.
Well, yeah, sometimes I get a little too creative.
Iron Maiden is an institution, and I'm delighted that I'm involved in it, but there was a time that I wasn't delighted so I quit.
Best two rock voices I've heard in a last few years both have been from grunge bands: it's Eddie Vedder and the other one is Chris Cornell from Soundgarden.
With the Internet, bands can come and go every five minutes and the music looks disposable.
A guy called Arthur Brown... was a big influence of mine... and also Ian Anderson from Jethro Tull.
I'm not going to do any more solo touring.
Life on the road can get a little one-dimensional. I didn't want to reach 40 and have to say all I'd done was look out the window of a tour bus and get drunk.
I enjoy making solo albums because over the years it's evolved into more of a genuine personal expression of story-telling and day dreams, and I work in a way that has more control.
My aim as a frontman is always to try and shrink the venue, if you can, to turn that football stadium into the world's smallest club. At least you have to try.
I don't have interns. I don't have a manager. I don't have assistants. I don't have a secretary. I can't figure out Outlook Express. I'm the worst person in the world answering e-mails, and my phone is probably the oldest, most battered phone you can find. So I just talk to people.
