“You see, to me, the art of music is listening to it, not playing it. The real art of it is hearing it.”

I never plan anything, which is probably the difference between Mick and myself. Mick needs to know what he’s gonna do tomorrow and I’m just happy to wake up to see who’s hanging around. Mick’s rock and I’m roll.

Why would you want to be anything else if you’re Mick Jagger?

I was number 1 on the who’s likely to die list for 10 years. I was really disappointed when I fell off that list.

My father. I snorted my father. He was cremated and I couldn’t resist grinding him up with a little bit of blow.

And then I think we realized, like any young guys, that blues are not learned in a monastery. You’ve got to go out there and get your heart broke and then come back and then you can sing the blues.

Music works in mysterious ways. Once it goes in you have no idea what it can do to you.

I don’t regret nothing.

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’m not a good enough musician to like completely master something in a couple of days and turn it around.

I am a musician. My passion for music has obliterated everything in its path for my entire life.

I never wanted to be a performer, that was not one of my goals. I wanted to be a musician and that was that.

No matter what you do, you’ll never run away from you.

Michael Jackson wanted to be in Men in Black II. He told me he had seen the first Men in Black in Paris and had stayed behind and sat there and wept.

Music proposes. Sound disposes.

I tried to give my career a shot from Barranquilla, but the musicians would never show up. It was just not taken seriously.

For musicians, Musikfest is the most cool event.