Keith Richards Quotes
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I thought it was ludicrous to take one of those gongs from the establishment...it's not what the Stones is about, is it? I don't want to step out on stage with someone wearing a fucking coronet and sporting the old ermine. I told Mick, It's a fucking paltry honour.
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The idea of retiring is like killing yourself. It's almost like Hari Kari. I intend to live to a 100 and go down in history.
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Guitar is easy, all it takes is 5 fingers, 6 strings and 1 a**hole...
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I'm free of hypochondria-- although I've got everything else.
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When you're 20, you can't imagine being 30. When you're 30, you can't imagine being 40. When you're 40, you can't imagine being 100.
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There's something beautifully friendly and elevating about a bunch of guys playing music together. This wonderful little world that is unassailable. It's really teamwork, one guy supporting the others, and it's all for one purpose, and there's no flies in the ointment, for a while. And nobody conducting, it's all up to you. It's really jazz__that's the big secret. Rock and roll ain't nothing but jazz with a hard backbeat.
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I occasionally borrow pot from my kids. They do a little weed occasionally. 'Here, Dad' — or more likely, 'Dad, have you got any?'
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What is it that makes you want to write songs? In a way you want to stretch yourself into other people’s hearts. You want to plant yourself there, or at least get a resonance, where other people become a bigger instrument than the one you’re playing. It becomes almost an obsession to touch other people. To write a song that is remembered and taken to heart is a connection, a touching of bases. A thread that runs through all of us. A stab to the heart. Sometimes I think songwriting is about tightening the heartstrings as much as possible without bringing on a heart attack.
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Music is a language that doesn’t speak in particular words. It speaks in emotions, and if it’s in the bones, it’s in the bones.
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When you are growing up there are two institutional places that affect you most powerfully: the church, which belongs to God, and the public library, which belongs to you.
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You get onstage and make other people feel happy. Make them feel good.
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The rock's easy, but the roll is another thing.
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I never thought I was wasted, but I probably was.
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It made me sick - my name's Keith Richards. It hardly makes it against Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters, does it? On my first guitar I had Boy Blue written - just pathetic. But that was as good as I got at the time.
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Love has sold more songs than you've had hot dinners.
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We do what we want to do. We write songs. We try not to repeat ourselves too much. We have our own sound and our own way of doing things. Up until now it has always been enjoyable. None of the members have ever got to the point where they don't want to be involved in it ... It's not entirely possible for me to stand back and look at the Rolling Stones because being a part of it you can't. I wish that I could just sit in the audience for one night and see the show. Everyone in the band has said that at some point. But then you wouldn't be seeing the whole band. And that's the problem with that.
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Nobody wants to get old, but nobody wants to die young either.
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I only get ill when I give up drugs...
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Preaching is tax free. Very little to do with God, a lot to do with money...
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George Jones is a national treasure and should be treated accordingly. A unique style so often emulated even inadvertently.
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I looked upon myself, in a sort of romantic and silly way, as like a laboratory.
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My life is full of broken halos.
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But I've always felt very comfortable on stage, even if I screw up. It always felt like a dog, this is my turf, piss around it. While I'm here, nothing else can happen. All I can do is screw up. Otherwise, have a good time.
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It's called the mysterious rhythm of life, ... I can't quite account for it. It's probably an addiction, quite honestly. I need that shot of stage every two or three years.