Keith Richards Quotes

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

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.

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.

I look for ambiguity when I'm writing because life is ambiguous.

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.

You've got the sun, you've got the moon, and you've got the Rolling Stones.

If you've gotta think about being cool, you ain't cool.

True friends. Hardest thing to find, but you never look for them - they found you ; you just grow into each other

Everyone talks about rock these days; the problem is they forget about the roll.

You don't find a style. A style finds you

Music is a necessity. After food, air, water and warmth, music is the next necessity of life.

I'm not getting old I'm evolving.

The rock's easy, but the roll is another thing.

A painter's got a canvas. The writer's got reams of empty paper. A musician has silence.

Nobody wants to get old, but nobody wants to die young either.

The public library is the great equaliser.

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

Some things get better with age. Like me.

If you are going to get wasted, then get wasted elegantly.

Guitar is easy, all it takes is 5 fingers, 6 strings and 1 a**hole

We age not by holding on to youth, but by letting ourselves grow and embracing whatever youthful parts remain.

I only get ill when I give up drugs... I don't have a drug problem, I have a police problem.

To a musician or songwriter, your canvas is silence.

[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!

Let me be clear about this. I don't have a drug problem. I have a police problem.

I'm an unpure purist, something like that.

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.

To me, the main thing about living on this planet is to know who the hell you are and be real about it. That's the reason I'm still alive.

And then I think we realized, like any young guys, that blues are not learned in a monastery. You've got to go out there and get your heart broke and then come back and then you can sing the blues.

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

I don't wave a flag for anything. I'm a musician.

I was in awe sometimes listening to Mick Taylor . Everything was there in his playing - the melodic touch, a beautiful sustain and a way of reading a song.

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

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.

My life is full of broken halos.

I'm all for a quiet life. I just didn't get one.

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

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.

I've always been suspicious of TV, I've always found music and video to be an unhappy marriage.

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

To me, my biggest fear is getting a big head, and that is when I get the hammer. Because it's very easy in this game to believe you're something special.

I am not doing it just for the money or for you.I am doing it for me.

Rock and Roll: Music for the neck downwards.

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

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

One of the great things about songwrighting; it's not an intellectual experience

I mean, give me a guitar, give me a piano, give me a broom and string, I wouldn't get bored anywhere.

You can't accuse me of anything I haven't already confessed to.

Retire? I can't spell the word. I'd play in a wheelchair.

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