Category: Keith Richards

“We’ve been trained from babyhood to have three square meals a day, the full factory-industrial revolution idea of how you’re supposed to eat.  Before then it was never like that.  You’d have a little bit often, every hour.  But when they had to regulate us all, ‘OK, mealtime!’  That’s what school’s about.  Forget the geography and history and mathematics, they’re teaching you how to work in a factory.  When the hooter goes, you eat.  For office work or even if you’re being trained to be a prime minister, it’s the same thing.  It’s very bad for you to stuff all that crap in at once.  Better to have a bit here, a mouthful there, every few hours a bite or two.  The human body can deal with it better than shoving a whole load of crap down your gob in an hour.” — Keith Richards, Life

“I take the view that God, in his infinite wisdom, didn’t bother to spring for two joints–heaven and hell.  They’re the same place, but heaven is when you get everything you want and you meet Mummy and Daddy and your best friends and you all have a hug and a kiss and play your harps.  Hell is the same place–no fire and brimstone–but they just all pass by and don’t see you.  There’s nothing, no recognition.  You’re waving, ‘It’s me, your father,’ but you’re invisible.  You’re on a cloud, you’ve got your harp, but you can’t play with nobody because they don’t see you.  That’s hell.” — Keith Richards, Life (emphasis in original)

“Great songs write themselves.  You’re just being led by the nose, or the ears.  The skill is not to interfere with it too much.  Ignore intelligence, ignore everything; just follow it where it takes you.” — Keith Richards, Life

“I’ve been through more cold turkeys than there are freezers.  I took the fucking hell week as a matter of course.  I took it as being part of what I was into.” — Keith Richards, Life

“To write a song that is remembered and taken to heart is a connection, a touching of bases.  A thread that runs through all of us.  A stab to the heart.  Sometimes I think songwriting is about tightening the heartstrings as much as possible without bringing on a heart attack.” — Keith Richards, Life

“If I sleep with someone, I at least have the right to wear her clothes.” — Keith Richards, Life

“Nothing like a good ten, fifteen minutes of pubescent female shrieking to cover up all your mistakes.” — Keith Richards, Life