Keith Richards Quotes

Keith Richards delivers blunt, funny musings about music, laziness and etiquette that feel like a rock-star's candid chat.

47 quotes

1. 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.

2. There are certain guys that are band players and there's certain guys that ain't. If there's anybody lazier than me, it's Eric (Clapton).

3. I looked upon myself, in a sort of romantic and silly way, as like a laboratory.

4. I thought rock and roll was an unassailable outlet for some pure and natural expression of rebellion. It used to be one channel you could take without ever havin' to kiss arse, you know?

5. I was number one on the Who's Likely To Die list for 10 years. I mean, I was really disappointed when I fell off the list.

6. 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.

7. I don't encourage anybody to do what I do, you know? Why should you? More for me!

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

9. Getting older is a fascinating thing. The older you get, the older you want to get.

10. I expected him to come in like this (changes his voice and raises his arm in a threatening gesture): 'Where have you been, you little sod?' Instead, this little man comes in and says: 'Hello, son, how are you?' It made my heart bleed.

11. I was looking for Leonardo da Vinci's book on anatomy. I learned a lot about anatomy but didn't find the book.

12. The real beauty of music is in the listening.

13. I have never turned blue in someone's bathroom. I consider that to be the height of bad manners.

14. I'm not the guys I see on MTV, who obviously think they are me.

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

16. If you're lucky enough to be a father, you'll learn a whole new kind of love:.. it's all full of purity and innocence, and it's just smiling at you and wants to kiss you and hug you, you've never felt so loved in your life. It's that bit of love you gave your own parents, the bit you don't remember - your kids give that back to you and you realize, I've just been given the first two or three years of my life back.

17. I don't have a problem with drugs. I have problems with the police.

18. Rock and Roll: Music for the neck downwards.

19. The only things Mick and I disagree about is the band, the music and what we do.

20. It's good to be here - it's good to be anywhere.

21. Here we are...here we go...UFO.

22. As far as I am concerned, Art is short for Arthur.

23. New Rule: Airplane black boxes must now be made out of Keith Richards. The man, who has taken more drugs than Whitney Houston, Rush Limbaugh and Robert Downey, Jr., combined, recently fell out of a tree, and then crashed a jet ski. And yet, somehow, that cigarette never fell out of his mouth. What is this guy still running on? I've got to know. Because I'm beginning to think the future of medicine isn't injecting stem cells, it's injecting heroin.

24. '...how come Keith Richards still walks? Explain that Mr. Surgeon General! You never mention Keith do you? Aah, a lttle hole in the theory there! Surgeon General says 'Drugs are bad -drugs are evil!...except for that guy, they work real good for him -but the rest of you...'

25. Keith Richards is shooting heroin into his eyeballs and still touring alright! I'm getting mixed signals! I picture nuclear war and two things surviving; Keith and cockroaches! *does Keith Richards impression* 'Where did everybody go-o? I saw a bright light and thought we were ho-ome...'

26. I was reading an interview with Keith Richards in a magazine and in the interview Keith Richards intimated that kids should not do drugs. Keith Richards! Says that kids should not do drugs! Keith, we can't do any more drugs because you already fucking did them all, alright! There's none left! We have to wait 'till you die and smoke your ashes! Jesus Christ! Talk about the pot and the fuckin' kettle.

27. No broken hearts, no broken necks.

28. Everybody's got a different way of telling a story - and has different stories to tell.

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

30. 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.

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

32. Before Elvis, everything was in black and white. Then came Elvis. Zoom, glorious Technicolor.

33. There's no substitute for live work to keep a band together.

34. 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.

35. I'm not getting old I'm evolving.

36. I'm an unpure purist, something like that.

37. I'm free of hypochondria-- although I've got everything else.

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

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

40. There was a knock on our dressing-room door. Our manager shouted, 'Keith! Ron! The Police are here!' Oh, man, we panicked, flushed everything down the john. Then the door opened and it was Stewart Copeland and Sting.

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

42. 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.

43. The electric guitar was vital in helping what I've achieved where would I be without it? Playing awfully quietly, for a start.

44. 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.'

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

46. When I listen to what I did under the influence - 10 years of work - I don't think it either enhanced or impaired me. It didn't have that much to do with it.

47. Music works in mysterious ways. Once it goes in you have no idea what it can do to you.