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Time & Perspective Quote by Brian May

"From the beginning of Queen there was such momentum that I never had any time to do anything else. My energy was 95% focused on the band"

About this Quote

Momentum is the flattering lie success tells you while it steals your calendar. Brian May’s line lands because it reframes rock stardom not as a string of glamorous choices, but as a kind of friendly captivity: once Queen started moving, stopping to consider alternatives became almost impossible. “From the beginning” matters here. He isn’t talking about the era of stadiums and money; he’s talking about the early acceleration, the point when a band can either calcify into a hobby or become a machine that demands feed and maintenance.

The specificity of “95%” is doing cultural work. It’s not a poetic “everything,” it’s the language of a disciplined worker, almost an engineer (which May literally was). That number signals pride and a faint self-indictment at once: impressive commitment, yes, but also an admission that life got budgeted. The missing 5% becomes the ghost of other selves he might have developed - scientific career, private life, creative detours - all deferred because the project kept paying emotional dividends.

In context, it’s also a subtle correction to the mythology of genius. Queen’s ascent is often narrated as inevitability, four virtuosos destined for the rafters. May hints at something more ordinary and more instructive: logistics, repetition, obsession, and the compounding force of early wins. Momentum isn’t magic; it’s acceleration plus fear of letting people down - bandmates, fans, the fragile momentum itself. The subtext is that “having time” is rarely something success grants. It’s something you have to take, and taking it can feel like betrayal.

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TopicWork Ethic
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APA Style (7th ed.)
May, Brian. (2026, January 17). From the beginning of Queen there was such momentum that I never had any time to do anything else. My energy was 95% focused on the band. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/from-the-beginning-of-queen-there-was-such-45093/

Chicago Style
May, Brian. "From the beginning of Queen there was such momentum that I never had any time to do anything else. My energy was 95% focused on the band." FixQuotes. January 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/from-the-beginning-of-queen-there-was-such-45093/.

MLA Style (9th ed.)
"From the beginning of Queen there was such momentum that I never had any time to do anything else. My energy was 95% focused on the band." FixQuotes, 17 Jan. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/from-the-beginning-of-queen-there-was-such-45093/. Accessed 13 Feb. 2026.

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Brian May (born July 19, 1947) is a Musician from England.

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