Top 120 Keith Richards Quotes (2025 Update)

1. “I’m not getting old, I’m evolving.”

— Keith Richards

2. “Music is a necessity. After food, air, water and warmth, music is the next necessity of life.”

— Keith Richards

3. “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

4. “Some things get better with age. Like me.”

— Keith Richards

5. “It’s great to be here. It’s great to be anywhere.”

— Keith Richards

6. “If you’ve gotta think about being cool, you ain’t cool.”

— Keith Richards

7. “Everybody’s got a different way of telling a story – and has different stories to tell.”

— Keith Richards

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

— Keith Richards

9. “If you’re cool, you don’t know nothing about it. It just is, or you ain’t.”

— Keith Richards

10. “The public library is the great equaliser.”

— Keith Richards

11. “To me, the main thing about living on this planet is to know who the hell you are and be real about it. That’s the reason I’m still alive.”

— Keith Richards

12. “I’ve never had a problem with drugs. I’ve had problems with the police.”

— Keith Richards

13. “Nobody wants to get old, but nobody wants to die young either.”

— Keith Richards

14. “If you’re gonna get wasted, get wasted elegantly.”

— Keith Richards

15. “My life is full of broken halos.”

— Keith Richards

16. “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

17. “It might appear that nothing is happening, but that’s actually when it really happens.”

— Keith Richards

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

— Keith Richards

19. “You don’t find a style. A style finds you.”

— Keith Richards

20. “You’ve got the sun, you’ve got the moon, and you’ve got the Rolling Stones.”

— Keith Richards

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

— Keith Richards

22. “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

23. “I mean, give me a guitar, give me a piano, give me a broom and string, I wouldn’t get bored anywhere.”

— Keith Richards

24. “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

25. “It’s a privilege just to wake up to a new day.”

— Keith Richards

26. “You know, life’s a funny thing. Nobody wants to get old, but nobody wants to die young either.”

— Keith Richards

27. “Retire? I can’t spell the word. I’d play in a wheelchair.”

— Keith Richards

28. “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

29. “There’s a demon in me, and he’s still around. Without the dope, we have a bit more of a chat these days.”

— Keith Richards

30. “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

31. “If you stay up, you get the songs that everyone else misses because they’re asleep.”

— Keith Richards

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

— Keith Richards

33. “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

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

— Keith Richards

35. “True friends. Hardest thing to find, but you never look for them – they found you ; you just grow into each other.”

— Keith Richards

36. “Let me be clear about this. I don’t have a drug problem. I have a police problem.”

— Keith Richards

37. “Anything you throw yourself into, you better get yourself out of.”

— Keith Richards

38. “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

39. “A painter’s got a canvas. The writer’s got reams of empty paper. A musician has silence.”

— Keith Richards

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

— Keith Richards

41. “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.”

— Keith Richards

42. “To me, life is a wild animal. You hope to deal with it when it leaps at you.”

— Keith Richards

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

— Keith Richards

44. “When you’re 20, you can’t imagine being 30. When you’re 30, you can’t imagine being 40. When you’re 40, you can’t imagine being 100.”

— Keith Richards

45. “I never thought I was wasted, but I probably was.”

— Keith Richards

46. “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.”

— Keith Richards

47. “What is life but playing with time?”

— Keith Richards

48. “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

49. “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

50. “I don’t regret nuthin...”

— Keith Richards