Keith Richards

“The big rules of knife fighting are (a) do not try it at home, and (b) the whole point is never, ever use the blade. It is there to distract your opponent. While he stares at the gleaming steel, you kick his balls to kingdom come--he's all yours. Just a tip!”

“To write a song that is remembered and taken to heart," Richards notes, "is a connection, a touching of bases. A thread that runs through all of us. A stab to the heart." Keith Richards from his autobiography”

“The thing about being a songwriter is,even if you been fucked over, you can find consolation in writing about it, and pour it out. Everything has something to do with something; nothing is divorced. It becomes an experience,a feeling or a aconglomeration of experiences...”

“That was the biggest fear. I'd rather clean up before I went on the road. It's bad enough cleaning up by yourself, but the idea of putting the whole tour on the line because I could'n make it was too much; even for me”

“Wild Horses" started in a B-minor chord, and Stu didn't play minor chords, "fucking Chinese music.”

“El silencio es el lienzo en blanco, el marco, sobre lo que trabajas; y no tratas de ahogarlo.”

“Y, aún con todo, la gente quiere llegar al otro, al corazón del otro, por eso existe la música: si no eres capaz de decirlo, cántalo.”

“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.”

“Memory is fiction,”

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

“A familiar Gusism was to greet a friend with 'Hello, don't be a cunt all yer life.”

“Rock and roll ain't nothing but jazz with a hard backbeat.”

“Love has sold more songs than you've had hot dinners.”

“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?”

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

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

“La gente me pregunta "por qué no lo dejas?". El hecho es que no me puedo retirar hasta que no estire la pata. Creo que no acaban de entender lo que gano con todo esto. No lo hago sólo por el dinero ni por ti. Lo hago por mi.”

“I firmly believe if you want to be a guitar player, you better start on acoustic and then graduate to electric. Don’t think you’re going to be Townshend or Hendrix just because you can go wee wee wah wah, and all the electronic tricks of the trade. First you’ve got to know that fucker. And you go to bed with it. If there’s no babe around, you sleep with it. She’s just the right shape.”

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

“What is it that makes you want to write songs? In a way you want to stretch yourself into other people’s hearts. You want to plant yourself there, or at least get a resonance, where other people become a bigger instrument than the one you’re playing. It becomes almost an obsession to touch other people. To write a song that is remembered and taken to heart is a connection, a touching of bases. A thread that runs through all of us. A stab to the heart. Sometimes I think songwriting is about tightening the heartstrings as much as possible without bringing on a heart attack.”

“A gut-string classical Spanish guitar, a sweet, lovely little lady. The smell of it. Even now, to open a guitar case, when it's an old wooden guitar, I could crawl in and close the lid.”

“[John] Belushi was an extreme experience even by my standards.”

“Preaching is tax free. Very little to do with God, a lot to do with money”

“I take the view that God, in his infinite wisdom, didn't bother to spring for two joints - heaven and hell. They're the same place, but heaven is when you get everything you want and you meet Mommy and Daddy and your best friends and you all have a hug and a kiss and play your harps. Hell is the same place - no fire and brimstone - but they just all pass by and don't see you. There's nothing, no recognition. You're waving, "It's me, your father," but you're invisible. You're on a cloud, you've got your harp, but you can't play with nobody because they don't see you. That's hell.”

“Its called a playground, but its nearer to a battlefield. It can be brutal”

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

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

“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.”

“Why would you want to be anything else if you're Mick Jagger?”

“I don't have a problem with drugs, I have a problem with policemen.”

“You can't always get what you want, but if you really need something, you usually find it.”

“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.”

“In fact, I take the view that God, in his infinite wisdom, didn't bother to spring for two joints - heaven and hell. They're the same place, but heaven is when you get everything you want and you meet Mummy and Daddy and your best friends and you all have a hug and a kiss and play your harps. Hell is the same place - no fire and brimstone - but they all pass by and don't see you. There's nothing, no recognition. You're waving, "It's me, your father," but you're invisible. You're on a cloud, you've got your harp, but you can't play with nobody because they don't see you. That's hell.”

“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. The public library is a great equalizer.”

“We bought Candy Twirls and Bull's-Eyes and Licorice & Blackcurrant. We weren't going to lower ourselves and score at the supermarket, were we?”

“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. Rock and roll ain't nothing but jazz with a hard backbeat.”

“Some people think I'm a mythical genius, others think I'm a junkie madman.”

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

“I don't regret nuthin... ”

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