110+ Keith Richards Quotes On Aging, Mick Jagger And Music

Keith Richards was an English musician and songwriter, best known as the co-founder, guitarist, secondary vocalist, and co-principal songwriter of the Rolling Stones. He is considered one of the most influential guitarists of all time, and has been credited as a major popularizer of the electric guitar. He has also served as the band's de facto leader since the departure of bassist Bill Wyman in 1993. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Keith Richards on life, aging, mick jagger.

Top 10 Keith Richards Quotes

1. I've never had a problem with drugs. I've had problems with the police.
2. 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.
3. I look for ambiguity when I'm writing because life is ambiguous.
4. 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.
5. You've got the sun, you've got the moon, and you've got the Rolling Stones.
6. True friends. Hardest thing to find, but you never look for them - they found you ; you just grow into each other
7. Everyone talks about rock these days; the problem is they forget about the roll.
8. You don't find a style. A style finds you
9. I'm not getting old I'm evolving.
10. A painter's got a canvas. The writer's got reams of empty paper. A musician has silence.

Keith Richards Image Quotes

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

You've got the sun, you've got the moon, and you've got the Rolling Stones. — Keith Richards

Keith Richards Short Quotes

• The public library is the great equaliser.
• Nobody wants to get old, but nobody wants to die young either.
• I like it here in Austin. Anybody got a room?
• Its called a playground, but its nearer to a battlefield. It can be brutal
• It's great to be here. It's great to be anywhere.
• It's a privilege just to wake up to a new day.
• Everybody starts by imitating their heroes. For me it was Chuck Berry and Muddy Waters.
• To make a rock'n'roll record, technology is the least important thing.
• If you say I'm great, thank you very much. But I know what I am. I could be better, man, you know?
• Before Elvis, everything was in black and white. Then came Elvis. Zoom, glorious Technicolor.

Keith Richards Quotes About Life

I'm all for a quiet life. I just didn't get one. — Keith Richards

What is life but playing with time? — Keith Richards

This is the rock 'n' roll life, and you had to invent it as you went along. There was no textbook to say how you operate this machinery. — Keith Richards

To me, life is a wild animal. You hope to deal with it when it leaps at you. — Keith Richards

We all have our own personal laboratories. Life is an experiment, and it's just a matter of getting the alchemical or chemical combination right. — Keith Richards

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

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. — Keith Richards

My life is full of broken halos. — Keith Richards

Keith Richards Quotes About Aging

Getting old is a fascination thing. The older you get, the older you want to get. — Keith Richards

What's the big deal about still working? Retirement age is sixty-five, and that's at a normal job - and I ain't there yet. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

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

Some things get better with age. Like me. — Keith Richards

Keith Richards Quotes About Music

I've always been suspicious of TV, I've always found music and video to be an unhappy marriage. — Keith Richards

Rock and Roll: Music for the neck downwards. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

You see, to me, the art of music is listening to it, not playing it. The real art of it is hearing it. — Keith Richards

Some people think I'm a mythical genius, others think I'm a junkie madman. — Keith Richards

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

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. — Keith Richards

You know, the BBC had not been particularly generous in its deliverance of blues and esoteric kinds of music. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

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

Keith Richards Quotes About Guitar

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

You're always learning about this thing everytime you pick it up — Keith Richards

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

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. — Keith Richards

You don't start to play your guitar thinking you're going to be running an organisation that will maybe generate millions. — Keith Richards

There's just certain styles of playing that you do play in your own way. Maybe it's in the way your fingers bend, for all I know. And so whenever you pick up the guitar it's not so much the sound of the instrument itself, it's like the ting that you add onto it-the attitude. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

Treat each guitar track-and each song-completely different. For example, if I'm using a certain amp and guitar on one track, I'll deliberately use something else for the next tune or overdub. — Keith Richards

The electric guitar meant that you could have a band with a drummer and a couple of guitars. And that put a lot of horn players out of work. — Keith Richards

Keith Richards Quotes About Rolling Stones

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. — Keith Richards

[joking about the length of the Rolling Stones' career] You have the sun, you have the moon, you have the air that you breathe - and you have the Rolling Stones! — Keith Richards

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

Keith Richards Quotes About Drugs

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

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

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

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

Keith Richards Quotes About Feet

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

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

To me, as long as we've known each other, I've always thought Mick's most brilliant thing was that he could work in an area two foot square and give a very exciting performance. — Keith Richards

Keith Richards Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

You've got the sun, you've got the moon, and you've got the Rolling Stones. — Keith Richards

I never plan anything, which is probably the difference between Mick and myself. Mick needs to know what he's gonna do tomorrow and I'm just happy to wake up to see who's hanging around. Mick's rock and I'm roll. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

To me, my biggest fear is getting a big head, and that is when I get the hammer. Because it's very easy in this game to believe you're something special. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

Yes, I've been trepanned. That's quite an interesting experience, especially for my brain surgeon, who saw my thoughts flying around in my brain. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

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.' — Keith Richards

It's an addiction... and addiction is something I should know something about. — Keith Richards

Some of my most outrageous nights- I can only believe actually happened because of corroborating evidence. No wonder I'm famous for partying! The ultimate party- if it's any good- you can't remember it. — Keith Richards

Why would you want to be anything else if you're Mick Jagger? — Keith Richards

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.' — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

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

The only new technology that interests me is when it sort of throws me back soundwise. And I can think, "Wow, that means I can go onstage and sound like Scotty Moore now and again!" — Keith Richards

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

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. — Keith Richards

One minute I'm standing at Ronnie Scott's getting a standing ovation and the next minute, I'm on a marble slab — Keith Richards

You didn't know whether Chuck Berry was black or white - it was not a concern. — Keith Richards

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

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

I've never had my hair cut by anybody, I do it all myself. — Keith Richards

I've never turned blue in someone else's bathroom. I consider that the height of bad manners. — Keith Richards

I wouldn't warm to [Chuck Berry] even if I was cremated next to him. — Keith Richards

It might appear that nothing is happening, but that's actually when it really happens. — Keith Richards

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. . .When it works, baby, you've got wings. — Keith Richards

Rock and roll ain't nothing but jazz with a hard backbeat. — Keith Richards

I was in awe sometimes listening to Mick Taylor . Everything was there in his playing - the melodic touch, a beautiful sustain and a way of reading a song. — Keith Richards

No broken hearts, no broken necks. — Keith Richards

It’s one thing to play a Muddy Waters song. It’s another thing to play with him. — Keith Richards

I was number 1 on the who's likely to die list for 10 years...I was really disappointed when I fell off that list. — Keith Richards

Rap - so many words, so little said. — Keith Richards

I'm free of hypochondria-- although I've got everything else. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

To me, it's important to prove that this isn't just teenage kids' s**t and you should feel embarrassed when you're over forty and still doing it. — Keith Richards

[John] Belushi was an extreme experience even by my standards. — Keith Richards

You can't accuse me of anything I haven't already confessed to. — Keith Richards

There's no substitute for live work to keep a band together. — Keith Richards

Retire? I can't spell the word. I'd play in a wheelchair. — Keith Richards

My father. I snorted my father. He was cremated and I couldn't resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

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

Rock n Roll is music from the neck down. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

Songwriting's a weird game. — Keith Richards

When I started, all I wanted to do was play like Chuck (Berry) — Keith Richards

Love has sold more songs than you've had hot dinners. — Keith Richards

If you're gonna get wasted, get wasted elegantly. — Keith Richards

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? — Keith Richards

Preaching is tax free. Very little to do with God, a lot to do with money — Keith Richards

The thing about being a songwriter, once you realize you are one, is that to provide ammo, you start to become an observer. ... You're constantly on the alert. That faculty gets trained in you over the years: observing people, how they react to one another, which in a way makes you weirdly distant. ... It's a little of Peeping Tom, being a song-writer. — Keith Richards

I never thought I was wasted, but I probably was. — Keith Richards

The rock's easy, but the roll is another thing. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

What interested me about Chuck Berry was the way he could step out of the rhythm part with such ease, throwing in a nice, simple riff, and then drop straight into the feel of it again. We used to play a lot more rhythm stuff. We'd do away with the differences between lead and rhythm guitar. You can't go into a shop and ask for a "lead guitar". You're a guitar player, and you play a guitar. — Keith Richards

If you are going to get wasted, then get wasted elegantly. — Keith Richards

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. — Keith Richards

I am not doing it just for the money or for you.I am doing it for me. — Keith Richards

Life Lessons by Keith Richards

1. Keith Richards is a great example of how hard work and dedication can help you achieve success. He has worked tirelessly for decades to perfect his craft, and it has paid off in the form of a successful career.
2. Keith Richards also teaches us the importance of collaboration. He has worked with a variety of talented musicians throughout his career, and his ability to collaborate with others has helped him create some of his most iconic music.
3. Finally, Keith Richards is a reminder that it's important to stay true to yourself and your own unique style. He has remained true to his own sound throughout his career, and it has allowed him to stand out from the crowd.