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(SEE ALSO DRUGS)

POLICE, THE LAW, and INCARCERATION

“Police … are basically in the business of crime … There’s criminals, and there’s police, but they’re in the same business. They think the same way. If there is a criminal mentality, there has got to be a police mentality and it has got to be pretty much the same, since they are in the same business. It’s not different than a wholesaler and a retailer in dealing in the same product. It’s crime … But it’s still the same job. It’s big business."

“The way they run the police force? The leader of a tribe of Boy Scouts has better intelligence … They find a little paper bag under the couch and go, ‘Gotcha!’ ”

“No matter how much they go in with their little speeches, it’s still like a tennis match where the ball never stops."

—on courtrooms

“Going to court is just an expensive habit."

“When I am thrown in a court, or anybody like myself is thrown in court, the jury has got absolutely no experience in the musician’s way of life, so they’re not your peers. I know justice is often rough and so on, but they don’t know what it’s like to be on the road for twenty years, and I can’t explain it to them now. So … give me a jury of my peers, with Chuck Berry, with Muddy Waters. And put Ron in there too. I mean, I can drop him a few bucks."

“They’ve had a go with trying. If they try again, I don’t see any real way they can get away with it, just because they have been trying to get me and it never works."

—when asked if he’s worried that the

law and police will finally get him

“I kept very much face-to-face with reality, mainly in the shape of a judge or policeman. That kind of worked, as an anchor, sort of brought me down to everybody else’s level, really, because I was made very aware that as far as they were concerned, I was a piece of shit that they wanted to see behind bars."

POLITICS

“Politics is an ugly word these days, and the only people who make politics an ugly word are politicians, because they are ugly people."

“How many times can you use those words—justice, freedom. It’s like margarine, man. You can package it and you can sell that too. In America they have a great talent for doing that."

“Politics are what we were trying to get away from in the first place."

“It’s an ongoing soap opera of the worst kind, but people still watch it."

“I never find it a happy marriage. It’s like church and state."

—on leaving politics out of art

“I … firmly believed Scotland Yard was incorruptible. Until I had to pay out ten grand and then get popped. And the scales fell from my eyes."

“It only takes one person to create a power struggle."

—referring initially to Mick

“I’ve always felt more sexual than political. I could never get that worked up about Edward Heath."

“I don’t think rock ’n’ roll music is at its fullest when it gets too involved with politics and tries to preach and say, ‘You must do this,’ or, ‘You free him.’ I think rock ’n’ roll’s real power is far more under the surface."

PREDICTIONS

“I hate predictions—they never turn out when I make them."

THE PRESENT

“The Rolling Stones have always believed in the present."

“Now."

—when asked what his idea

of perfect happiness is

“Today’s what counts."

THE PRESS

“Then don’t be offensive."

—in response to a journalist asking a

question about his clothes with the disclaimer

“I don’t mean to be offensive”

“That question you just asked me."

—when asked by a journalist which

question he is asked most often

PRISON

“First off, neither the accommodations nor the fashion suited me at all. I like a little more room, I like the john to be in a separate area, and I hate to be woken up. The food’s awful, the wine list is terribly limited, and the library is abysmal."

“The first thing you do automatically when you wake up is drag the chair to the window and look up to see what you can see out the window. It’s an automatic reaction. That one little square of sky, trying to reach it."

“The only point of sending someone on a drug bust to jail is to rehabilitate