Quotes

[on media coverage of him]: As long as my face is on page one, I don't care what they say about me on page seventeen.

I'd rather be dead than singing "Satisfaction" when I'm forty-five.

Either we stay at home and become pillars of the community or we go out and tour. We couldn't really find any communities that still needed pillars.

I am conservative with a small "c". It's possible to be conservative in fiscal policy, and tolerant on moral issues or questions of freedom of expression.

All dancing is a replacement for sex.

Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

It's all right letting yourself go, as long as you can get yourself back.

[about Elvis Presley] He was a unique artist... an original in an area of imitators.

[on Bo Diddley] He was a wonderful, original musician who was an enormous force in music and was a big influence on The Rolling Stones. He was very generous to us in our early years and we learned a lot from him. We will never see his like again.

[in 1980, explaining why the Stones removed the song "Claudine" (about Claudine Longet's murder trial) from the Emotional Rescue album after her lawyers threatened to sue] We've done things that we can't use because they're too close to the knuckle as far as people are concerned. I don't mind being sued - there's always 2 or 3 lawsuits currently running against someone with more than $50,000 to their name - but I don't want to put out a million albums and then have to withdraw them...

[on Hubert Sumlin] Hubert was an incisive yet delicate blues player. He had a really distinctive and original tone and was a wonderful foil for Howlin' Wolf's growling vocal style ... He was an inspiration to us all.

[commenting in 1985 on The Smiths album "Meat Is Murder" going to number one in the UK] I'm not sure I wanna hear a whole album about meat.

[on scalping and the secondary sourcing of tickets] The artist is totally powerless in this. People have made a lot of fuss about it before, but - on the other side - some people are like 'We might as well participate in it'. Why shouldn't they in a way?.. It's completely legal, so - until it's illegal - there's nothing much anyone can do about that.

Solomon Burke had such a great voice...powerful but in total control. It oozed soul. The great man had a wonderful sense of phrasing and dynamics born out of the church and gospel experience. We loved that and he was a huge influence on all of us, but especially myself in those early formative years.

When I first went to America, I met James Brown at the Apollo, and he let me hang out with him and watch his shows. I copied all of his moves. I used to do his slide across the stage, when you move laterally from one side of the stage to the other, twisting your foot on one leg. I couldn't do the splits, so I didn't even bother. Everyone did the microphone trick, where you pushed the microphone, then you put your foot on it , and it comes back. James probably did it best.

'Between The Buttons' is a terrible album... more or less rubbish.

The thing that bugs me is that I get treated like the Grandfather of Pop.

They thought 'we can never have a guy like that in a film, he's a junkie Satanist!'

[on Monty Python Live (Mostly) (2014)] Who wants to see that again, really? It's a bunch of wrinkly old men trying to relive their youth and make a load of money - the best one Graham Chapman] died years ago!