“When I listen to what I did under the influence – 10 years of work – I don’t think it either enhanced or impaired me. It didn’t have that much to do with it.”

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 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.