Aqueous rechargeable batteries provide the safety, robustness, affordability, and environmental friendliness necessary for grid storage and electric vehicle operations, but their adoption is plagued by poor cycle life due to the structural and chemical instability of the anode materials. Here we report quinones as stable anode materials by exploiting their structurally stable ion-coordination charge storage mechanism and chemical inertness towards aqueous electrolytes. Upon rational selection/design of quinone structures, we demonstrate three systems that coupled with industrially established cathodes and electrolytes exhibit long cycle life (up to 3,000 cycles/3,500 h), fast kinetics (>= 20C), high anode specific capacity (up to 200-395 mAh g(-1)), and several examples of state-of-the-art specific energy/energy density (up to 76-92 Wh kg(-1)/161-208 Wh l(-1)) for several operational pH values (1 to 15), charge carrier species (H+, Li+, Na+, K+, Mg2+), temperature (35 to 25 degrees C), and atmosphere (with/without O-2), making them a universal anode approach for any aqueous battery technology.