“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?”

I have no idea what the audience makes of me.

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

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.

Some things get better with age. Like me.

To a musician or songwriter, your canvas is silence.

One of the great things about songwrighting; it’s not an intellectual experience.

I only get ill when I give up drugs. I don’t have a drug problem, I have a police problem.

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

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.

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

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

I don’t wave a flag for anything. I’m a musician.

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.

If you are going to get wasted, then get wasted elegantly.

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 usually record all through the night, but I’m known for waking up early in the morning. Even if I had recorded till 3 or 4 in the morning I might wake up at 9 or 10. I never sleep till 1 o clock.

Put on a record and take off most of your clothes.

Aviation records don’t fall until someone is willing to mortgage the present for the future.

I’m just a musician and a record producer.

Even if I accepted that Jesus – like almost every other prophet on record – was born of a virgin, I cannot think that this proves the divinity of his father or the truth of his teachings. The same would be true if I accepted that he had been resurrected.

The act of multitrack recording is the act of arranging.

Making a record is like painting a school bus with a toothbrush.

I’m never in my life going to do a record that’s a tribute to myself. I don’t need it.