What Muddy Waters did for us is what we should do for others. It's the old thing, what you want written on your tombstone as a musician: 'He passed it on.'

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

Knowledge is not Power, its is potential power!

Time should always by used well to maximise personal desires.

I wanted to trust in my partners and the directors and producers and do the best I can to deliver what I could deliver.

I want the presence of God Himself, or I don't want anything at all to do with religion... I want all that God has or I don't want any.

I can do what I need to do. I can get where I want to go, no matter how hard it is.

The only thing that can spoil a day is people and if you can keep from making engagements, every day has no limits.

All men are frightened. The more intelligent they are, the more they are frightened.

I don't live in the past.

As one of my predecessors said, our objective is not to take people to heaven, but to prevent humanity from going to hell.

I wanted to be a poet when I was 20; I had no interest in fiction or biography and precious little interest in history, but those three elements in my life have become the most important.