“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.”

I haven’t stopped smoking; anything.

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

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.

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.

Poison’s not bad. It’s a matter of how much.

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

Love has sold more songs than you’ve had hot dinners.

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

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

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.

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

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

You don’t find a style. A style finds you.

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

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.

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

Listening to the Fifth Symphony of Ralph Vaughan Williams is like staring at a cow for 45 minutes.

We must listen to poets.

If I had listened to the critics I’d have died drunk in the gutter

I tried to discover, in the rumor of forests and waves, words that other men could not hear, and I pricked up my ears to listen to the revelation of their harmony.

To listen is an effort, and just to hear is no merit. A duck hears also.

Look up more than down. See more than say. Listen more than speak. Hope more than dread. Believe more than criticize. Yes more than no. No more than maybe. Laugh more than cry. Love more than hate. See. More. See.

The subconscious is ceaselessly murmuring, and it is by listening to these murmurs that one hears its truth.

Music must be listened to; it is not enough to hear it. A duck hears also.