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

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.’

I never thought I was wasted, but I probably was.

No broken hearts, no broken necks.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I’ve never had my hair cut by anybody, I do it all myself.

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

I’m an unpure purist, something like that.

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.

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

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

The Stones in a club is still the ultimate rush.

That narrow stretch of sand knows nothing in the world better than it does the white waves that whip it , caress it , collapse on to it .

I merely took the energy it takes to pout and wrote some blues.

People like Clyde McPhatter who came out of the black churches – like Sam Cooke and Aretha Franklin – were all church singers who became great pop singers because gospel singing is very close to the blues.

And what does the beach knows of depths, the cold, the currents just there, where-do you see it? – Where the water turns a deeper blue.

I don’t believe in inspiration that arrives like a bolt from the blue … It seems to me that the more motivated I am by what I film, the more objectively I film.

I’ve always had a great love for the blues.

Don’t get caught up on ‘I’m brown, black, white, red, blue, whatever.’ You gotta ask, what were you called before 1492?

I’ve never turned blue in someone else’s bathroom. I consider that the height of bad manners.