Mick Jagger through the years: his best quotes

26 July 2025, 12:00

The Stones frontman celebrates his 82nd birthday on 26th July. Here are some of his words of wisdom.

By Radio X

@RadioX

1. "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?”

   

2. “Nobody wanted a band looking like us and playing what we wanted to play, because they couldn’t understand anyone wanting to hear it.”

   

3. “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.”

   

4. "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."

   

5. "They’re so pathetic, all those journalists. Most of them are. Things are just invented about your personal life and you just have to take that. People believe it, though. They just believe everything they read.”

   

6. “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.”

   

7. "The grown-up world was a very ordered society in the ’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 behaviour and dress.”

   

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

   

9. "I get really involved in what I call business. I just love all the graphics and the stage design and all that. If it wasn't for that, it would be really quite boring, because you're doing the same songs."

   

10. "You just give the best show you can – even if you feel terrible, you’ve got a cold, your back’s aching and all that crap. You do it because you are putting yourself on the line and those people have paid good money to see you, and you better be bloody good.”

    

11. “Only a madman or an actor would want to be President of the United States.”

    

12. “I’m, along with the Queen, y’know -one of the best things England’s got- me and the Queen.”

    

13. “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.”