Keith Richards Quotes

Nobody picks on a strong man.

They think because I'm small, they can do what they want to do to me. But I'm not weak. If I lower my shoulder and they lower they're shoulder, they're going to go down.

You put me in here a cub, but I will come out a roaring lion.

I grew up in the Midwest, and I was a short, fat, little Jewish kid... but it was just different. People didn't understand, so I had to deal with it. One day, I physically dealt with it, and it never happened again. I'm not saying that's the way to do it, but you have to stand up for yourself, period, end of story.

If you're big at school, you've really got two choices. You're going to be a target. If you go to school, and you're me, you go, 'Right - I'm just going to make myself a bigger target. My confidence, it will terrify them.' That's how I felt in school.

I was a quiet kid on the streets. The loudmouths would push me around but when I was boxing, I was beating them up and it felt good.

One day, I got beat up, and my glasses, which were crooked already, got shattered on the ground. That's when I said, 'Okay, enough.' I became like Batman. I decided to thug myself out, all the way.

Dealing with bullies when I was in sixth and seventh grade has made me a better football player, believe it or not. You have to come to a point when you're like, 'I've had enough, and I'm not going to be kicked around and pushed around anymore.'

Listen, street punk. You're a guy, and you're a couple inches taller, and maybe forty pounds heavier, and ooh, you're in a gang. But I've survived ten years of Catholic school, and I will cut you off at your knees without a blink. Do you understand?

I was totally picked on, but look at me now! I was definitely picked on by boys and girls. I was really lanky and skinny and the boys would say, 'Turn sideways and stick out your tongue, you look like a zipper.'

If you want to call me names, make jokes and doubt my intentions, go ahead, because the reality is I can take it.

I was bullied by a few people who were much older than me. I went to camp to learn boxing. I was 12, and my coach was 24. I felt like if I could fight him, I could stand up to anyone.

You can bullied as a young model, but there was a point where I found my voice, effectively.

There are no makeovers in my books. The ugly duckling does not become a beautiful swan. She becomes a confident duck able to take charge of her own life and problems.

I was drawn to boxing because I got beat up as a kid. I was the kid with the piano books in a New York neighbourhood.

I told my mom the reason I started working out was because I wanted to break the necks of the people picking on me. I wanted to hurt them. I said I didn't want any teacher to put me down any more.

Bullies want to abuse you. Instead of allowing that, you can use them as your personal motivators. Power up and let the bully eat your dust.

When I was in school, martial arts made you a dork, and I became self-conscious that I was too masculine. I was a 16-year-old girl with ringworm and cauliflower ears. People made fun of my arms and called me 'Miss Man.' It wasn't until I got older that I realized: These people are idiots. I'm fabulous.

I'm a black lady from the Lower East Side of New York. Not a lot intimidates me.

You can either hope and pray you don't get picked on, or you can, in a way, almost make yourself a bigger target, because it's harder to bully something that's really big. It's easy to bully something that's small and frail.

When I was in seventh grade, I was a scrawny boy with no muscles, so I went out for wrestling. My intention was to develop secret wrestling skills so that if I were jumped by a bully, I'd shout, 'Ha!' and he'd be on the ground in a headlock.

At 16, I walked around knowing I'd get chased and attacked for dressing a certain way - I felt I had an undeniable right to be who I wanted to be. My father said to hit them back, but I was never much good at that. So I developed a big mouth instead of a quick right hook.

A ton of kids at school have made fun of me; if I had to give advice to other girls, I would say, 'Hang loose and ignore them. They shouldn't faze you no matter how popular they think they are.'

I grew up in a neighbourhood where there was a lot of fighting. It's what boys did during school, during recess, after school. And I was a fairly large kid. So everyone wanted to see if they could take me on.

It was just bred in me that I would not back down to guys who were bigger than me.