What would Keith Richards do_ - Jessica Pallington West [35]
“If only Mozart had had a really good drummer …”
CHEMISTRY
We all have our personal laboratories. Life is an experiment, and it’s just a matter of getting the alchemical or chemical combination right. We’re all unwitting alchemists. Sometimes, if we pay attention to the chemicals we’re putting in the beakers, it turns out all right.
“Chemistry was one of those subjects in school that I was never good at … but I think it’s the unknown bit—the mysterious spark— that does it."
“Sure thing, man. I used to be a laboratory myself once."
—response to a fan asking him to
sign his chemistry book
“There’s something to be said for a certain chemistry between people that makes for a certain kind of music."
“I believe magic is only a combination of natural forces."
“Magic is a word for something that is power that we don’t fully understand and can enable things to happen. I mean, nobody really understands about the effect that certain rhythms have on people, but our bodies beat. We’re only alive because the heartbeat keeps going all the time. And also certain sounds can kill."
“My personal laboratory."
—on his body
CHILDREN
“They do more for you than you do for them."
“You think about a lot of things when you have a kid … It’s all full of purity and innocence, and it’s just smilin’ at you, and wants to kiss you and hug you … feel you and touch you, and you never felt so loved in your life."
“It’s that bit of love you gave your own parents, the bit you don’t remember—your kid gives that back to you."
“It’s like a missin’ piece in a jigsaw puzzle. If you can keep that, instead of showin’ them off—‘Hey, I made this’—they made you."
“They keep reminding you of things you can’t remember."
“I’ve never had to explain anything to them. It’s not like, ‘Oh, Dad, you’re an outlaw.’ What would Jesse James have told his kids if he had the time?"
“Even for a hardened old cynic like me, it was a fantastic thing seeing a baby being born. I’m a softhearted guy when it comes to kids and things like that. I just love it."
“My kids are the least of my problems; it’s the grown-ups that screw me."
“Children are far too intractable for you to impose yourself on them. There’s no point in having fights, because they beat you every time. Especially girls."
“Children are like songs to me. You don’t bring them up. They kind of show you what they need, and you provide it."
“They give you that little bit—that important bit of living when you absolutely don’t know shit about nothing."
CLICHÉS
“I love clichés. They’re so true and so boring."
CONFESSIONS and ACCUSATIONS
“You can’t accuse me of anything I haven’t already confessed to."
CONFUSION
“Confusion is not the ally of peace and love."
COURAGE
“At least I faced it. It’s the only thing I’m proud about in all of that period—that I faced up to it and said, okay, that’s it, and it’s all over … I was looking down the bad end of the gun."
—on his Toronto arrest
CREATIVITY (see also WRITING and INVENTION)
“I’m just a vessel."
“Is it a distraction or is it a vision or God knows what? It’s all different things."
“Everybody starts by imitating their heroes."
“There’s really only one song in the whole world, and probably Adam and Eve hummed it to each other, and everything else is a variation on it in one form or another, you know?"
“Musicians and performers start off with a focal point of somebody before they discover themselves."
“First off you just copy, then eventually you start to find out if you can add your own thing to it. Rock ’n’ roll in particular is based very much upon that … they have somebody in mind that turns them on to do it in the first place. It’s the old thing of, ‘The real thing that you can do and leave behind is the thing that you pass on to the next lot.’ ”
“Like anything else, the more