Best 132 quotes of Keith Richards on MyQuotes

About myself I have no great illusions. I know what I am. I know what I'm good at. I know what I ain't. I'm always hoping to surprise myself. But I do have a love of music and I do love to communicate it, and that's the best I can do, really. And I can raise a good family, too.

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.

And it was a very, very fruitful and great relationship between the Stones and The Beatles. It was very, very friendly.

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.

Another thing to do with the blues is how they were recorded. They were done on the quick, and some of that stuff was made on wire, not even tape, let alone digital.

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

Art is the last thing I'm worried about when I'm writing a song. As far as I'm concerned, art is just short for 'Arthur.'

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

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?

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.

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

Everybody starts by imitating their heroes. For me it was Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters.

Everybody thinks you reach a certain age and you're a grownup, but it's not true. Nobody grows up until the day they croak.

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

Fame has killed more very talented guys than drugs. Jimi Hendrix didn't die of an overdose, he died of fame.

From the 12th Congressional District Hopeful William Jefferson Clinton during the Nixon investigations. I wanted to share some information I've turned up regarding two of your Clinton quotes.

George Jones is a national treasure and should be treated accordingly. A unique style so often emulated even inadvertently.

Good music comes out of people playing together, knowing what they want to do and going for it. You have to sweat over it and bug it to death. You can't do it by pushing buttons and watching a TV screen.

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

Hey, we just enjoy it. I think we think we're getting the hang of this thing, you know?

I achieved everything I wanted to achieve by being in the Rolling Stones and making records.

I can sustain the impetus over the long tours we do is by feeding off the energy that we get back from an audience. That's my fuel. All i've got is this burning energy, especially when i've got a guitar in my hands.

I consider my job [being a musician] is to have a little idea and nurture it and put it in some form that everybody else can understand and then sort of pass it on. It's really a passing through. In other words, you receive and you transmit.

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

I don't like to go into the studio with all the songs worked out and planned before hand ... you've got to give the band something to use its imagination on as well. That can make a very ordinary song come alive into something totally different ... the X-factor - so important in rock and roll - which is the feel.

I don't regret nuthin.

I don't think rock n' roll songwriters should worry about art. I don't think it comes into it...as far as I'm concerned, Art is just short for Arthur.

I don't trust doctors. It's not to say there ain't some good ones, but on a general level, no, I wouldn't trust 'em at all.

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

I'd play whenever I could get my hands on an electric guitar; I was trying to pick up rock'n'roll riffs and electric blues - the latest Muddy Waters. I'd spend hours and hours on the same track, back again, and back again.

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.

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

If you say I'm great, thank you very much. But I know what I am. I could be better, man, you know?

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

I have no idea what the audience makes of me.

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

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

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

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

I'm not getting old I'm evolving.

I never sleep alone. If there is no one to sleep next to, I'll sleep next to a stuffed animal. It makes me feel secure and safe. It's a little embarrassing to admit it; I'm an old man now. It's important to me though.

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 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.

I occasionally borrow pot from my kids. They do a little weed occasionally. 'Here, Dad' — or more likely, 'Dad, have you got any?'

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

I personally believe that most people that play an instrument would be able to write a few songs here and there. But they say, "I tried, I can't do it" and give up and don't try it again; they get too discouraged.

I read the Bible sometimes, but it bores me to death. I just want to know what other people find so bloody fascinating.

It made me sick - my name's Keith Richards. It hardly makes it against Howlin' Wolf or Muddy Waters, does it? On my first guitar I had Boy Blue written - just pathetic. But that was as good as I got at the time.

It's a privilege just to wake up to a new day.

It's basically against the whole idea of what always made rock&roll music interesting to me. I thought it was an unassailable outlet for some pure and natural expressions of rebellion. It was one channel you could take without havin' to kiss ass, you know? And right now it just seems like they're on a big daisy chain, each kissin' each other's asses.

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