Mick Jagger quotes:

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.

Thank you for leaving us alone but giving us enough attention to boost our egos.

The Spice Girl Victoria Beckham has just published the story of her life. I confess that it is not in my reading table.

People love talking about when they were young and heard Honky Tonk Women for the first time. It's quite a heavy load to carry on your shoulders, the memories of so many people.

The elusive nature of love... it can be such a fleeting thing. You see it there and it's just fluttering and it's gone.

Lose your dreams and you might lose your mind.

When you start a new project, no matter if it's a movie like Enigma or an album like Goddess, you are always learning something. While I search, I find something new.

I must be careful not to get trapped in the past. That's why I tend to forget my songs.

The new fashion is to talk about the most private parts of your life; other fashion is to repent of your excesses and to criticize the drugs that made you happy in the other times.

The past is a great place and I don't want to erase it or to regret it, but I don't want to be its prisoner either.

I can't get no satisfaction.

I remember when I was very young, I read an article by Fats Domino which has really influenced me. He said, 'You should never sing the lyrics out very clearly.

Patriotism is an instant reaction that fades away when the war starts.

People are so brainwashed by the rules that they don't know what really matters.

My mother has always been unhappy with what I do. She would rather I do something nicer, like be a bricklayer.

People get very thoughtful when they are in cars. I no longer care for cars. I don't collect them.

You wake up in the morning and you look at your old spoon, and you say to yourself, 'Mick, it's time to get yourself a new spoon.' And you do.

I'd done a very long project on Bridges To Babylon. I was on the road for ages with that. When I came off the road, I thought, the next thing I want to do on my own.

As long as my face is on page one, I don't care what they say about me on page seventeen.

I love country music, but I find it very hard to take it seriously. I also think a lot of country music is sung with the tongue in cheek, so I do it tongue in cheek.

I believe we should encourage children to sing and play instruments from an early age.

Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.

Life's just a cocktail party - on the street.

Casanova, he had no money and no power, and according to some, he even was cute. But he had talent to live, and some literature talent. I love how he invented himself.

I don't watch much ESPN. Unless they have soccer on.

I am pleased the Ministry of Culture is protecting the morals of expatriate bankers and their girlfriends.

A lot of times songs are very much of a moment, that you just encapsulate. They come to you, you write them, you feel good that day, or bad that day.

I am not very conscious of the figures of speech that I use.

I prefer to live in a rented house. No ties. Nothing around my neck. Just the minimum kind of bare comforts of home.

The grown-up world was a very ordered society in the early '60s, and I was coming out of it. America was even more ordered than anywhere else. I found it was a very restrictive society in thought and behavior and dress.

People think they know you. They know the things about you that you have forgotten.

Polarization affects families and groups of friends. Its a paralyzing situation. A civil war of opinion.

I don't want to be a rock star all my life. I couldn't bear to end up like Elvis Presley in Las Vegas with all those housewives and old ladies coming in with their handbags

It's hard to believe that you did so many drugs for so long. That's what I find really hard. And didn't really consider it. It was eating and drinking and taking drugs and having sex. It was just part of life.

My father was furious with me, absolutely furious. I'm sure he wouldn't have been so mad if I'd have volunteered to join the army. Anything but this. He couldn't believe it. I agree with him: It wasn't a viable career opportunity.

My secrets must be poetic to be believable.

I wasn't taking so many drugs that it was messing up my creative processes. It was a very good period, 1968 - there was a good feeling in the air. It was a very creative period for everyone.

It's like everyone I have dinner with, I'm having an affair with. Who was it I met the other day? Minnie Driver! She seems charming, but that's the only time I've met her.

Americans shocked me by their behavior and their narrow-mindedness.

I got nasty habits; I take tea at three.

People have this obsession. They want you to be like you were in 1969. They want you to, because otherwise their youth goes with you. It's very selfish, but it's understandable.

I have never wanted to give up performing on stage, but one day the tours will be over.

Music should elevate you. You can be raised, or left stranded. You can't be raised all the time, in my experience. This might be a rare moment. You might just go up to that level but that's always good.

There is something I like about talking to journalists that really goes beyond promotion because you aren't just talking to the journalist, but you are talking through them to people who presumably are fans of the Rolling Stones. The interviews give you a chance to say a few things and maybe clear up some of the things people read about the band.

I should think that being my old lady would be all the satisfaction or career any woman needs

You can't always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you might find, you get what you need.

I'm very much against the secondary ticket market. I don't know anyone who isn't.

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

Lets drink to the hard working people Lets drink to the salt of the earth

Samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it's also got some other suggestions in it, an undercurrent of being primitive - because it is a primitive African, South American, Afro-whatever-you-call-that rhythm. So to white people, it has a very sinister thing about it.

It's not selling out, it is called making lots of money.

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

I haven't had the time to plan returning to the scene because I haven't left it.

When we heard we were topping the bill over James Brown we couldn't believe it. We tried for two days to get it changed round - I mean you can't follow an act like that.

There's no absolutes in life - only vodka.

Anarchy is the only slight glimmer of hope.

I don't really count myself as a very sophisticated businessperson. I'm a creative artist. All I know from business I've picked up along the way.

I am not a librarian of my own work. It's a good thing not to be too involved with what you have done.

We have a lot of secondary market problems in the U.K.; it's really bad there. And lots of artists are starting to participate in it, because they put the tickets up at a certain price, then the tickets get marked up by the secondary sellers, and someone else gets twice as much as you.

A good thing never ends.

Acting is mostly interpretive. They use different parts of you, and different sides of you, and different so-called talents.

All dancing is a replacement for sex

Always as a musician you must have one thing you do well.

Americans are funny people: first you shock them, then they put you in a museum.

Americans get very simple explanations of what happens to them.

Any performer is one person privately and then he's another person when he steps on the stage.

Anyone taking heroin is thinking about taking heroin more than they're thinking about anything else. That's the general rule about most drugs.

Biographies of British pop celebrities are terrible.

Boys were a very essential part of rock & roll. The girls were more onlookers.

Boys, as far as England was concerned, were always the hard core. And you just know the guys like it. They want to be you. Some might be attracted to you without knowing it.

Country music... doesn't bend notes in the same way, so I suppose it's very English, really. Even though it's been very Americanized, it feels very close to me, to my roots, so to speak.

Dandelions don't tell no lies...

Don't take life too seriously and always remember: it is just a passing fad.

Don't you think it's sometimes wise not to grow up.

Drug use makes you snappy, and you get very bad-tempered and have terrible hangovers.

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.

Everyone in the movie industry wants to win an Oscar. I don't think that's why you make movies. But winning an Oscar is not just about making a great movie, unfortunately. It's also having a good Oscar campaign.

Everyone knows what their roots are, but you've got to explore everywhere. You've got to explore the sky too.

For some people it's real therapy to talk to journalists about their private lives and inner thoughts. But I would rather keep something to myself.

Goddess was made in my home in France. The material retained an integrity whit it would have lost in Los Angeles studio.

Have I turned into a motorized preacher? We spend so much time in cars that if you don't try to get some experiences out of it, you can go crazy.

He stole my music but he gave me my name.

I always think it's better to be not taking drugs or drinking or anything. That's not saying I've never done it because I have. But I sort of learned I think after a while there has been - it didn't take me that long to realize that it wasn't a good thing.

I came into music just because I wanted the bread. It's true. I looked around and this seemed like the only way I was going to get the kind of bread I wanted.

I didn't have any inhibitions. I saw Elvis and Gene Vincent, and I thought, "Well, I can do this." And I liked doing it.

I didn't really like being at college. It wasn't like it was Oxford and had been the most wonderful time of my life. It was really a dull, boring course I was stuck on.

I don't believe in astrology. It's a lot of crap. I just think that's another thing you should throw out the window. Mysticism. Cheap. It's amazing that people still hang on to that after all these years.

I don't believe in having bands for solo records.

I don't find it easy dealing with people with drug problems. It helps if you're all taking drugs, all the same drugs.

I don't hate journalists. You can't hate a class of people. It's wrong to say that. But I do think they're a bit like poison. Never trust them. You can't trust them as a class of people. It's their job not to be trusted.

I don't know if rock is dying. I wouldn't want to say that, but the world does change. Nothing stays the same.

I don't like being completely isolated. I need the energy from other people.

I don't like drugs. I think cocaine is a very bad, habit-forming bore. It's about the most boring drug ever invented.

I don't only like rock music. There are other forms of music that I find interesting. I would want to do everything, every kind of music. I wouldn't want to be limited to like playing heavy metal or whatever.

I don't really like using guns too much, you know, even for sport.

I don't really mind criticism in music or in shows and stuff like that at all. I mean, it doesn't really worry me even if it's like out of place. At least it's relevant.

I don't spend money on anything. I don't collect anything. I don't spend it on furniture.

I don't think enjoying life is an exclusive prerogative of young people.

I don't think people care about the mechanics of songwriting.

I don't think that being in a full-time relationship is necessarily for everybody all of the time. It's not necessarily some state of grace.

I don't want to be my extravert self all the time.

I don't want to be singing Satisfaction when I'm 40.

I enjoy doing different kinds of things. I just enjoy being not tied too much. I feel that I'm tied to myself as a kind of traditional musician and a singer, and the history that I have ties me down.

I have to get up the fitness level, sing a lot, practice, get in the mood, and generally do lots of rehearsal. Get your body and mind ready.

I like to have a peek, see what the audience is doing during the opening act, because it gives you a clue and gives you a good feeling of where you are - the air can be different in different places.

I liked John a lot. He was the one I really got on with the most. We weren't buddy-buddies but we were always friendly. But after the Beatles and the Stones stopped playing clubs, we didn't see each other that much until he separated from Yoko, around 1974. We got really friendly again. And when he went back with Yoko, he went into hibernation ... when I went to visit someone in the Dakota, I'd leave him a note saying: 'I live next door: I know you don't want to see anyone, but if you do, please call.' He never did.

I read the most extravagant things about people who suffer and depress because of things written about them.

I really don't see myself being apart from music. I like doing lots of different things. I've been involved in film for quite a long time and I just like doing film.

I see songwriting as having to do with experience, and the more you've experienced, the better it is. But it has to be tempered, and you just must let your imagination run.

I should think that being my old lady would be all the satisfaction or career any woman needs.

I think it's very important that you have at least some sort of inner thing you don't talk about. That's why I find it distasteful when all these pop stars talk about their habits.

I think people are afraid to express their opinions half the time.

I think that people taking drugs occasionally are great. I think there's nothing wrong with it. But if you do it the whole time, you don't produce as good things as you could.

I used to play Saturday night shows with different little groups. If I could get a show, I would do it. I used to do mad things - I used to go and do these shows and go on my knees and roll on the ground - when I was 15,16 years old. And my parents were extremely disapproving of it all. Because it was just not done. This was for very low-class people, remember. Rock & roll singers weren't educated people

I was never that interested in business, to be honest. I do the minimal amount of business as possible because I'm not actually interested in it as a thing. But some people are interested in it, and there's nothing wrong with that.

I wasn't understanding enough about drug addition. No one seemed to know much about drug addiction. Things like LSD were all new. No one knew the harm. People thought cocaine was good for you.

I would hate to say as a non-African-American person that it would be wrong for a black person to direct white people in a movie. Wouldn't that be awful of me to say that? The only sympathizing thing I might say for people that want to [grumble] is that a filmmaker should have an understanding for the place where the people you're portraying are coming from.

I would like to reach a balance and forget a few things.

I, personally, have a lot of energy, so I don't see it as an immediate problem.

If you are British, you soon get used to people not loving you. The Irish remind us of offenses from 100 years ago. Perhaps we should react to what the French did to us even longer ago.