Keith Richards Quotes

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

I don’t do regrets. Regrets are pointless. It’s too late for regrets. You’ve already done it, haven’t you? You’ve lived your life. No point wishing you could change it.

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

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.

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

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

I only get ill when I give up drugs.

When you’re 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.

I believe in miracles, but I don’t rely on them.

I’ve never had a problem with drugs. Only with policemen.

You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.

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

I’m not really a guitarist, but I have fun playing around with guitars.

I’ve always been suspicious of TV and film, because for me at least, it drains away the imaginative power which has been trained from childhood to adulthood by reading.

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.

It’s great to be playing rock ‘n’ roll; you don’t have to worry about the melody, just let the rhythm be your guide.

The music that I’ve played has always been personal, not from any technical liking. I played music that naturally came to me when I needed to play it.

If you’re trying to be something you’re not, whether it’s an actor or musician or doctor or lawyer, it’s going to be a hard life. It isn’t going to be fun!

Music is a need and a love and to hear it the way it should be heard, rather than compressed to death or foully recorded, is really a joy.

I never wanted to be famous. I only wanted to be great.

I try to give my guitar a voice that speaks; when I play chords I try to make them say something.

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

It’s all about the rhythm now, the sound, the feeling of playing with other musicians.

I think I made the right choice when I went with the Rolling Stones. They gave me twenty or thirty years.

If you’re trying to be something you’re not, whether it’s an actor or musician or doctor or lawyer, it’s going to be a hard life. It isn’t going to be fun!

We started off trying to set up a small anarchist community, but people wouldn’t obey the rules.

Once I’ve got the chords and know the tune, everything else comes, whether it’s conversations with other musicians, the words, images and emotions that emerge, it’s a musical journey.

I never got into this business a saint to sell you salvation, never did. It’s to make great music; that’s what I’m about.

It’s not about being a rock star. It’s not about being famous. It’s about being the best musician you can be at any given moment.

Music is an extraordinary vehicle for expressing emotion – very powerful emotions. That’s what draws millions of people towards it. And I found myself always going for these darker places and – people identify with that.

I don’t think rock ‘n’ roll should be analyzed or treated as some serious sacred cow, because to me it’s entertainment.

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.

I like working. I don’t have a wife. I don’t have kids. So it’s good to keep working.

The Stones were notorious, then on the cutting edge of what was supposed to pass for dangerous rock. But they were following everyone else… I never even visited Graceland until long after Elvis was dead. I came here in the dark, like anybody else did, to make better music.

I guess it is but certain things can be treated as anathema I think I probably learn more from other people’s mistakes and my own but it doesn’t mean I should start singing like Frank Sinatra because I know I’m going to fall flat on me face.

I used to sleep at night with a diamond under my pillow because I couldn’t afford to buy all my dreams.

It’s something I just love. I tap my feet. What more can I say?

People don’t want to hear you hit wrong notes. They want to be lifted up.

I’d rather be dead than singing ‘Satisfaction’ when I’m

40. I believe that in any art form, whether it’s acting, painting, or writing, the most important thing is to be honest.

The music that I’ve played has always been personal, not from any technical liking. I played music that naturally came to me when I needed to play it.

To Elvis, the voice was God. Keith, Mick Jagger, they wanted to be famous, but I liked the whole thing about charting things and that – it’s a great feeling. I really like the Top Ten charts.

I had a satellite image of my house and it was, like, the whole world on a screen in front of me, and there it was, and there were those houses and the little fields, immutable and fixed in time. It just blew my mind.

Life is complicated and confused, and getting anything done requires compromise, concessions, concession to the turbulence of the soul. Living with a woman is compromise, absolutely.

Music is the greatest communication in the world. Even if people don’t understand the language that you’re singing in, they still know good music when they hear it.