Keith Richards Quotes

I never thought I was wasted, but I probably was.

If you don't know the blues... there's no point in picking up the guitar and playing rock and roll or any other form of popular music.

The public library is the great equaliser.

If you're gonna get wasted, get wasted elegantly.

Some things get better with age. Like me.

Fame has killed more very talented guys than drugs. Jimi Hendrix didn't die of an overdose, he died of fame.

I've never had inner turmoil about all this. You find a lot of people these days who cannot stand to be alone. You could lock me up in solitary for weeks on end, and I'd keep myself amused.

To me, life is a wild animal. You hope to deal with it when it leaps at you.

If you're cool, you don't know nothing about it. It just is, or you ain't.

I haven't stopped smoking...anything

The Beatles were basically a vocal band.

It’s one thing to play a Muddy Waters song. It’s another thing to play with him.

To make a rock'n'roll record, technology is the least important thing.

[joking about the length of the Rolling Stones' career] You have the sun, you have the moon, you have the air that you breathe - and you have the Rolling Stones!

I personally believe that most people that play an instrument would be able to write a few songs here and there. But they say, "I tried, I can't do it" and give up and don't try it again; they get too discouraged.

If you're going to kick authority in the teeth, you might as well use both feet.

But I'm not here just to make records and money. I'm here to say something and to touch other people, sometimes in a cry of desperation: "Do you know this feeling?

You get onstage and make other people feel happy. Make them feel good.

Rock n Roll is music from the neck down.

Hey, we just enjoy it. I think we think we're getting the hang of this thing, you know?

Women are a beautiful complication, and I look forward to far more beauties and far more complications.

I never sleep alone. If there is no one to sleep next to, I'll sleep next to a stuffed animal. It makes me feel secure and safe. It's a little embarrassing to admit it; I'm an old man now. It's important to me though.

When you're supported by millions all over the world, you can either go nuts, or try to feed off the goodwill.

If you stay up, you get the songs that everyone else misses because they're asleep.

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.

To me, as long as we've known each other, I've always thought Mick's most brilliant thing was that he could work in an area two foot square and give a very exciting performance.

You don't start to play your guitar thinking you're going to be running an organisation that will maybe generate millions.

I like it here in Austin. Anybody got a room?

I don't trust doctors. It's not to say there ain't some good ones, but on a general level, no, I wouldn't trust 'em at all.

What is life but playing with time?

What's the big deal about still working? Retirement age is sixty-five, and that's at a normal job - and I ain't there yet.

Another thing to do with the blues is how they were recorded. They were done on the quick, and some of that stuff was made on wire, not even tape, let alone digital.

I've never had a problem with drugs. I've had problems with the police.

We all have our own personal laboratories. Life is an experiment, and it's just a matter of getting the alchemical or chemical combination right.

About myself I have no great illusions. I know what I am. I know what I'm good at. I know what I ain't. I'm always hoping to surprise myself. But I do have a love of music and I do love to communicate it, and that's the best I can do, really. And I can raise a good family, too.

It's really good to be here and as I always say, it's really good to be anywhere!

You're sitting with some guys, and you're playing and you go, "Ooh, yeah!" That feeling is worth more than anything. There's a certain moment when you realize that you've actually just left the planet for a bit and that nobody can touch you. You're elevated because you're with a bunch of guys that want to do the same thing as you. And when it works, baby, you've got wings. You know you've been somewhere most people will never get; you've been to a special place.

This is the rock 'n' roll life, and you had to invent it as you went along. There was no textbook to say how you operate this machinery.

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.

It might appear that nothing is happening, but that's actually when it really happens.

I've got nothing against daylight. I don't live totally nocturnally. Only when I feel like it. Which is most of the time.

It's great to be here. It's great to be anywhere.

Treat each guitar track-and each song-completely different. For example, if I'm using a certain amp and guitar on one track, I'll deliberately use something else for the next tune or overdub.

I'd been an expert at taking beatings. Then I had a lucky break where I did a bully in, by total sheer luck. ... One minute I was the mark, and with just one swift move, I put the big man in school down. ... Once he was down, the whole atmosphere in the schoolyard changed. A huge cloud seemed to be lifted from me. ... I'd never been aware the cloud was so large.

I mean some doctor told me I had six months to live and I went to their funeral.

What interested me about Chuck Berry was the way he could step out of the rhythm part with such ease, throwing in a nice, simple riff, and then drop straight into the feel of it again. We used to play a lot more rhythm stuff. We'd do away with the differences between lead and rhythm guitar. You can't go into a shop and ask for a "lead guitar". You're a guitar player, and you play a guitar.

My father. I snorted my father. He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow.

It's an addiction... and addiction is something I should know something about.