Quotes By Mick Jagger

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.

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.

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.

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.

No one should care if the Rolling Stones have broken up, should they? I mean, when the Beatles broke up, I couldn't give a shit. Thought it was a very good idea. Why should I live in the past just for their petty... satisfaction?

I can do Jumpin' Jack Flash in the bath at midnight, on my head. I don't need to rehearse to do that, I really don't.

People overestimate the Rolling Stones. I don't think the Stones areas good as people think. Obviously I think the Stones are a very good band.

Americans are funny people. First, you shock them, and then they put you in a museum.

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've managed to avoid tattoos so far.

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. It's a real buzz, even in front of 20 people, to make a complete fool of yourself. But people seemed to like it. And the thing is, if people started throwing tomatoes at me, I wouldn't have gone on with it. But they all liked it, and it always seemed to be a success, and people were shocked. I could see it in their faces.

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

I was always a singer. I always sang as a child. I was one of those kids who just liked to sing. Some children sing in choirs; others like to show off in front of the mirror. I was in the church choir and I also loved listening to singers on the radio - the BBC or Radio Luxembourg - or watching them on TV and in the movies.

I'm not in love with things at the moment. I was never crazy about Nirvana - too angst-ridden for me. I like Pearl Jam. I prefer them to a lot of other bands. There's a lot of angst in a lot of it, which is one of the great things to tap into. But I'm not a fan of moroseness.

I'm totally anti-nostalgia; I never listen to old Rolling Stones records. I'm not really interested in them. They're funny, sometimes, to hear.

It's kind of limiting using your intellect to write songs like Brown Sugar, isn't it? The only thing I'm really interested in is comparative religion and ancient history.

The Beatles were so big that it's hard for people not alive at the time to realize just how big they were. There isn't a real comparison with anyone now.

He [Bo Diddley] 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.

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

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