Richards: "Everybody's got a different way of telling a story - and has different stories to tell."

Richards: "Songwriting's a weird game. I never intended to become one - I fell into this by mistake, and I can't get out of it. It fascinates me. I like to point out the rawer points of life."

Richards: "I look for ambiguity when I'm writing because life is ambiguous."

Richards: "I've never tried to achieve anything. I achieved everything I wanted to achieve by being in the Rolling Stones and making records."

Richards: "About myself I have no great illusions. I know what I am. I know what I'm good at. I know what I ain't. I'm always hoping to surprise myself. But I do have a love of music and I do love to communicate it, and that's the best I can do, really. And I can raise a good family, too."

Richards: "It's great to be here. It's great to be anywhere."

Richards: "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."

Richards: "If you're going to kick authority in the teeth, you might as well use both feet."

Richards: "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."

Richards: "Yes, I've been trepanned. That's quite an interesting experience, especially for my brain surgeon, who saw my thoughts flying around in my brain."

Richards: "You've got the sun, you've got the moon, and you've got the Rolling Stones."

Richards: "Good music comes out of people playing together, knowing what they want to do and going for it. You have to sweat over it and bug it to death. You can't do it by pushing buttons and watching a TV screen."

Richards: "Give me a guitar, give me a piano, give me a broom and string; I wouldn't get bored anywhere."

Richards: "I've always been suspicious of TV, I've always found music and video to be an unhappy marriage."

Richards: "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."

Richards: "I mean some doctor told me I had six months to live and I went to their funeral."

Richards: "You get onstage and make other people feel happy. Make them feel good."

Richards: "Another thing to do with the blues is how they were recorded. They were done on the quick, and some of that stuff was made on wire, not even tape, let alone digital."

Richards: "I've never had a problem with drugs. I've had problems with the police."