“I think it’s very important that you have at least some sort of inner thing you don’t talk about. That’s why I find it distasteful when all these pop stars talk about their habits.”

I see songwriting as having to do with experience, and the more you’ve experienced, the better it is. But it has to be tempered, and you just must let your imagination run.

I believe we should encourage children to sing and play instruments from an early age.

You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need.

I never really studied business in school. I kind of wish I had, but how boring is that?

Thank you for leaving us alone but giving us enough attention to boost our egos.

I prefer to live in a rented house. No ties. Nothing around my neck. Just the minimum kind of bare comforts of home.

The grown-up world was a very ordered society in the early ’60s, and I was coming out of it. America was even more ordered than anywhere else. I found it was a very restrictive society in thought and behavior and dress.

I enjoy doing different kinds of things. I just enjoy being not tied too much. I feel that I’m tied to myself as a kind of traditional musician and a singer, and the history that I have ties me down.

You can’t be jealous and be a leader.

I don’t think that being in a full-time relationship is necessarily for everybody all of the time. It’s not necessarily some state of grace.

You don’t always do the same things you’ve done the night before. That’s what makes playing live so interesting as opposed to being in the studio.

Time is on my side, yes it is.

I don’t want to be singing Satisfaction when I’m 40.

I, personally, have a lot of energy, so I don’t see it as an immediate problem.

Any performer is one person privately and then he’s another person when he steps on the stage.

I came into music just because I wanted the bread. It’s true. I looked around and this seemed like the only way I was going to get the kind of bread I wanted.

Quality is not an act, it is a habit.

A century from now it will no more occur to a normal person to mate with a person eugenically unfit than to marry a habitual criminal.

One of the most common causes of failure is the habit of quitting when one is overtaken by temporary defeat.

I read an hour almost every night. It’s part of falling asleep.

The nation which indulges toward another a habitual hatred or a habitual fondness is in some degree a slave.

Cultivate the habit of being grateful for every good thing that comes to you, and to give thanks continuously. And because all things have contributed to your advancement, you should include all things in your gratitude.

It is a very funny thing that the sleepier you are, the longer you take about getting to bed.

Procrastination is the bad habit of putting of until the day after tomorrow what should have been done the day before yesterday.