Quotes by Keith Richards

About Keith Richards:

Keith Richards is an English musician, singer and songwriter, and one of the original members of the rock band The Rolling Stones. Rolling Stone Magazine credited Richards for "rock's greatest single body of riffs" on guitar and ranked him 4th on its list of 100 best guitarists. Fourteen songs that Richards wrote with the Rolling Stones' lead vocalist Mick Jagger are listed among Rolling Stone magazine's "500 Greatest Songs of All Time". The Stones are generally known for their guitar interplay of rhythm and lead ("weaving") with Brian Jones, Mick Taylor and Ronnie Wood over the years. In spite of this, Richards plays the only guitar tracks on some of their most famous songs including "Paint It Black", "Ruby Tuesday", "Sympathy for the Devil", and "Gimme Shelter".
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

The Beatles were basically a vocal band.

Keith Richards

I've never tried to achieve anything. I achieved everything I wanted to achieve by being in the Rolling Stones and making records.

Keith Richards

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

Keith Richards

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.

Keith Richards

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 equaliser.

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

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

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

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

Keith Richards

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

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 good to be anywhere.

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

You get onstage and make other people feel happy. Make them feel good.

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

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

Songwriting's a weird game. I never intended to become one - I fell into this by mistake, and I can't get out of it. It fascinates me. I like to point out the rawer points of life.

Keith Richards

To make a rock'n'roll record, technology is the least important thing.

Keith Richards

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

Keith Richards

Rock and Roll: Music for the neck downwards.

Keith Richards

Author Bio

  • NameKeith Richards
  • DescriptionBritish rock musician, member of The Rolling Stones
  • AliasesKeith Richard
  • BornDecember 18, 1943
  • CountryUnited Kingdom
  • ProfessionRecord Producer; Singer-songwriter; Guitarist; Composer; Musician; Autobiographer; Writer