“I looked upon myself, in a sort of romantic and silly way, as like a laboratory.”

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

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.