"There are only four people who knew what the Beatles were about anyway."
Paul McCartney
"The postman wants an autograph. The cab driver wants a picture. The waitress wants a handshake. Everyone wants a piece of you."
John Lennon
"I wanted to be successful, not famous."
George Harrison
“Everybody loves you when you're six foot in the ground.”
John Lennon, from his song 'Nobody Loves You'
"Music's all right John, but you'll never make a living out of it."
John Lennon's Aunt Mimi Smith
“We didn't all get into music for a job! We got into music to avoid a job, in truth - and get lots of girls.”
Paul McCartney
Reporter: "The French have not made up their minds about the Beatles; what do you think of them?"
John Lennon: "Oh, we like the Beatles, they're gear"
“We thought that if we lasted for two to three years that would be fantastic.”
Ringo Starr
"The nicest thing is to open the newspapers and not to find yourself in them."
George Harrison
Question: "Are you scared when crowds scream at you?"
John Lennon: "More so in Dallas than in other places."
[A reference to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, just weeks before the Beatles arrived in America]
"Guilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn't enough and you have to go and get shot or something."
John Lennon, 1980, the year John was shot
"It was Elvis who really got me hooked on beat music. When I heard "Heartbreak Hotel" I thought, this is it."
Paul McCartney
"We were the Spice Boys."
George Harrison
"If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace."
John Lennon
"I'll play what you want or I won't play at all."
George Harrison to Paul during the recording of the "Let It Be" album
“So this is America. They must be out of their minds."
Ringo Starr, in 1964, arriving in America for the first time
"I definitely did look up to John. We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest."
Paul McCartney
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it."
John Lennon
"Gene Autry was the most. It may sound like a joke - Go and have a look in my bedroom, It's covered with Gene Autry posters. He was my first musical influence."
Ringo Starr
"They gave their money and they gave their screams, but the Beatles kind of gave their nervous systems."
George Harrison in 1995 on Beatlemania
"George wrote Taxman, and I played guitar on it. He wrote it in anger at finding out what the taxman did. He had never known before then what could happen to your money."
Paul McCartney
"You have to be a bastard to make it, and that's a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth."
John Lennon
"America has everything, why should they want us?"
George Harrison, 1964, as the Beatles proceed to conquer America
"We will miss George for his sense of love, his sense of music and his sense of laughter."
Ringo Starr
"At the end of the Beatles, I really was done in for the first time in my life. Until then, I really was a kind of cocky sod."
Paul McCartney
"In the end, this world will go under because of the stupidity of people."
George Harrison
Question: "There`s a "stamp out the Beatles movement" underway in Detroit. What are you going to do about it?"
Paul McCartney: "We`re going to start a campaign to stamp out Detroit."
"We reckoned we could make it because there were four of us. None at us would've made it alone, because Paul wasn't quite strong enough, I didn't have enough girl-appeal, George was too quiet, and Ringo was the drummer. But we thought that everyone would be able to dig at least one of us, and that's how it turned out."
John Lennon
“Everything government touches turns to crap.”
Ringo Starr
"Rap music is just computerised crap. I listen to Top of the Pops and after three songs I feel like killing someone."
George Harrison
Question: "How do you feel about teenagers imitating you with Beatle wigs?"
John Lennon: "They are not imitating us, because we don`t wear Beatle wigs."
Question: "Does your hair require any special attention?"
John Lennon: "Inattention is the main thing."
Reporter: "Where did you get the idea for the haircuts?"
John Lennon: "Where'd you get the idea for yours?"
Reporter: "What execuse have you for collar-length hair?"
John Lennon: "Well, it just grows out of yer head."
"I am alive and well and unconcerned about the rumors of my death. But if I were dead, I would be the last to know."
Paul McCartney, 1969
Question: "What did you think when your airliner`s engine began smoking as you landed today?"
Ringo Starr: "Beatles, women and children first!"
"The first time I heard "Love Me Do" on the radio, I went shivery all over - I couldn't believe it!"
George Harrison
"As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot”
John Lennon
"America: It's like Britain, only with buttons."
Ringo Starr
"I can't deal with the press; I hate all those Beatles questions."
Paul McCartney
"The world used us as an excuse to go mad."
George Harrison
“Part of me suspects that I'm a loser, and the other part of me thinks I'm God Almighty”
John Lennon
"The White Album is important to me for different reasons. One - I had left the band on the White Album."
Ringo Starr
"...And I came back and it was great, 'cuz George had set up all these flowers all over the studio saying welcome home. So then we got it together again. I always felt it was better on the White one for me. We were more like a band, you know."
Ringo Starr
"Nothing pleases me more than to go into a room and come out with a piece of music."
Paul McCartney
"The Beatles saved the world from boredom."
George Harrison
"Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry."
John Lennon during the Royal Variety Performance (November 4, 1963)
Reporter, during a 1964 press conference: "What do you call that haircut?"
George: "Arthur"
"I couldn't put my finger on one reason why we broke up. It was time, and we were spreading out. They were spreading out more than I was. I would've stayed with the band."
Ringo Starr
"I must confess, when the Beatles finished around about 1970, I thought, 'OK. We've done jolly well, I didn't honestly think I'd still be talking about them 30 or 40 years later. I thought interest would gradually peter out. But it does seem -- and I've gotten quite used to this -- each generation, as it comes along, finds Beatles music out for themselves. And I'm grateful for that. If anything, it was the epitome of British music in the last century."
George Martin
Question: "What do you think of the criticism that you`re not very good?"
George Harrison: "We`re not."
"None of us wanted to be the bass player. In our minds he was the fat guy who always played at the back."
Paul McCartney
"What the Beatles did was something incredible, it was more than what a band could do. We have to give them respect."
Yoko Ono
"I don't bother so much about the others' songs. For instance, I don't give a damn about how 'Something' is doing in the charts -- I watch 'Come Together' (the flip side) because that's my song."
John Lennon (near the end of The Beatles as a band)
"I now realize that taking drugs was like taking an aspirin without having a headache."
Paul McCartney, 1967
“That was a great time. I was in my 20s, had lots of energy. I have great memories of it.”
Ringo Starr
"As far as I'm concerned, there won't be a Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon remains dead."
George Harrison
"I don't intend to be a performing flea any more. I was the dreamweaver, but although I'll be around I don't intend to be running at 20,000 miles an hour trying to prove myself. I don't want to die at 40."
John Lennon
"When I write, there are times -- not always -- when I hear John (Lennon) in my head, ... I'll think, OK, what would we have done here?, and I can hear him gripe or approve.”
Paul McCartney
"I'd rather be a musician than a rockstar."
George Harrison
“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”
John Lennon
"I never really got on that well with Yoko anyway. Strangely enough, I only started to get to know her after John's death."
Paul McCartney
"I've always thought there was this underlying thing in Paul's 'Get Back.' When we were in the studio recording it, every time he sang the line 'Get back to where you once belonged," he'd look at Yoko."
John Lennon
“No, I've got my band, and he's got his. It's never going to happen. We're both doing other things now.”
Ringo Starr, 2005, when asked if he and Paul would ever tour together
“The door’s always open for a meeting, although to be realistic it would have to be on Paul’s volition. But we’re not starry-eyed youngsters anymore, it would be nice to meet just for posterity. There were some great moments in Liverpool when we were kids.”
Pete Best, about the possibility of a meeting with the other surviving former Beatles
"When we were starting off as kids, just the idea of maybe going to do this as a living instead of getting what we thought was going to be a boring job, was exciting."
Paul McCartney
"I didn't leave the Beatles. The Beatles have left the Beatles, but no one wants to be the one to say the party's over."
John Lennon
"I didn't like the look of Rory's drummer myself. He looked the nasty one, with his little grey streak of hair. But the nasty one turned out to be Ringo, the nicest of them all."
George Harrison
"So we went in and we did the album in twelve hours... because we did everything we'd been doing on the road for the last year or so, you know."
Ringo Starr on recording the Beatles' first album
"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."
John Lennon, from his song 'Beautiful Boy' (1980)
“I am devastated and very, very sad, ... We knew he'd been ill for a long time. He was a lovely guy and a very brave man and had a wonderful sense of humor. He is really just my baby brother.”
Paul McCartney, after the death of George
"When I'm ninety-five and it's 'This is Your Life' time, they'll still be referring to me as 'ex-Beatle'...it does have it's advantages. It's still the best way to get a good table at a resturant."
Ringo Starr
"The Beatles is over, but John, Paul, George, and Ringo...God knows what relationship they'll have in the future. I don't know. I still love those guys! Because they'll always be those people who were that part of my life."
John Lennon
"The Beatles will go on and on."
George Harrison
Paul McCartney
"The postman wants an autograph. The cab driver wants a picture. The waitress wants a handshake. Everyone wants a piece of you."
John Lennon
"I wanted to be successful, not famous."
George Harrison
“Everybody loves you when you're six foot in the ground.”
John Lennon, from his song 'Nobody Loves You'
"Music's all right John, but you'll never make a living out of it."
John Lennon's Aunt Mimi Smith
“We didn't all get into music for a job! We got into music to avoid a job, in truth - and get lots of girls.”
Paul McCartney
Reporter: "The French have not made up their minds about the Beatles; what do you think of them?"
John Lennon: "Oh, we like the Beatles, they're gear"
“We thought that if we lasted for two to three years that would be fantastic.”
Ringo Starr
"The nicest thing is to open the newspapers and not to find yourself in them."
George Harrison
Question: "Are you scared when crowds scream at you?"
John Lennon: "More so in Dallas than in other places."
[A reference to the assassination of President John F. Kennedy in Dallas, just weeks before the Beatles arrived in America]
"Guilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn't enough and you have to go and get shot or something."
John Lennon, 1980, the year John was shot
"It was Elvis who really got me hooked on beat music. When I heard "Heartbreak Hotel" I thought, this is it."
Paul McCartney
"We were the Spice Boys."
George Harrison
"If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace."
John Lennon
"I'll play what you want or I won't play at all."
George Harrison to Paul during the recording of the "Let It Be" album
“So this is America. They must be out of their minds."
Ringo Starr, in 1964, arriving in America for the first time
"I definitely did look up to John. We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest."
Paul McCartney
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it."
John Lennon
"Gene Autry was the most. It may sound like a joke - Go and have a look in my bedroom, It's covered with Gene Autry posters. He was my first musical influence."
Ringo Starr
"They gave their money and they gave their screams, but the Beatles kind of gave their nervous systems."
George Harrison in 1995 on Beatlemania
"George wrote Taxman, and I played guitar on it. He wrote it in anger at finding out what the taxman did. He had never known before then what could happen to your money."
Paul McCartney
"You have to be a bastard to make it, and that's a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth."
John Lennon
"America has everything, why should they want us?"
George Harrison, 1964, as the Beatles proceed to conquer America
"We will miss George for his sense of love, his sense of music and his sense of laughter."
Ringo Starr
"At the end of the Beatles, I really was done in for the first time in my life. Until then, I really was a kind of cocky sod."
Paul McCartney
"In the end, this world will go under because of the stupidity of people."
George Harrison
Question: "There`s a "stamp out the Beatles movement" underway in Detroit. What are you going to do about it?"
Paul McCartney: "We`re going to start a campaign to stamp out Detroit."
"We reckoned we could make it because there were four of us. None at us would've made it alone, because Paul wasn't quite strong enough, I didn't have enough girl-appeal, George was too quiet, and Ringo was the drummer. But we thought that everyone would be able to dig at least one of us, and that's how it turned out."
John Lennon
“Everything government touches turns to crap.”
Ringo Starr
"Rap music is just computerised crap. I listen to Top of the Pops and after three songs I feel like killing someone."
George Harrison
Question: "How do you feel about teenagers imitating you with Beatle wigs?"
John Lennon: "They are not imitating us, because we don`t wear Beatle wigs."
Question: "Does your hair require any special attention?"
John Lennon: "Inattention is the main thing."
Reporter: "Where did you get the idea for the haircuts?"
John Lennon: "Where'd you get the idea for yours?"
Reporter: "What execuse have you for collar-length hair?"
John Lennon: "Well, it just grows out of yer head."
"I am alive and well and unconcerned about the rumors of my death. But if I were dead, I would be the last to know."
Paul McCartney, 1969
Question: "What did you think when your airliner`s engine began smoking as you landed today?"
Ringo Starr: "Beatles, women and children first!"
"The first time I heard "Love Me Do" on the radio, I went shivery all over - I couldn't believe it!"
George Harrison
"As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot”
John Lennon
"America: It's like Britain, only with buttons."
Ringo Starr
"I can't deal with the press; I hate all those Beatles questions."
Paul McCartney
"The world used us as an excuse to go mad."
George Harrison
“Part of me suspects that I'm a loser, and the other part of me thinks I'm God Almighty”
John Lennon
"The White Album is important to me for different reasons. One - I had left the band on the White Album."
Ringo Starr
"...And I came back and it was great, 'cuz George had set up all these flowers all over the studio saying welcome home. So then we got it together again. I always felt it was better on the White one for me. We were more like a band, you know."
Ringo Starr
"Nothing pleases me more than to go into a room and come out with a piece of music."
Paul McCartney
"The Beatles saved the world from boredom."
George Harrison
"Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry."
John Lennon during the Royal Variety Performance (November 4, 1963)
Reporter, during a 1964 press conference: "What do you call that haircut?"
George: "Arthur"
"I couldn't put my finger on one reason why we broke up. It was time, and we were spreading out. They were spreading out more than I was. I would've stayed with the band."
Ringo Starr
"I must confess, when the Beatles finished around about 1970, I thought, 'OK. We've done jolly well, I didn't honestly think I'd still be talking about them 30 or 40 years later. I thought interest would gradually peter out. But it does seem -- and I've gotten quite used to this -- each generation, as it comes along, finds Beatles music out for themselves. And I'm grateful for that. If anything, it was the epitome of British music in the last century."
George Martin
Question: "What do you think of the criticism that you`re not very good?"
George Harrison: "We`re not."
"None of us wanted to be the bass player. In our minds he was the fat guy who always played at the back."
Paul McCartney
"What the Beatles did was something incredible, it was more than what a band could do. We have to give them respect."
Yoko Ono
"I don't bother so much about the others' songs. For instance, I don't give a damn about how 'Something' is doing in the charts -- I watch 'Come Together' (the flip side) because that's my song."
John Lennon (near the end of The Beatles as a band)
"I now realize that taking drugs was like taking an aspirin without having a headache."
Paul McCartney, 1967
“That was a great time. I was in my 20s, had lots of energy. I have great memories of it.”
Ringo Starr
"As far as I'm concerned, there won't be a Beatles reunion as long as John Lennon remains dead."
George Harrison
"I don't intend to be a performing flea any more. I was the dreamweaver, but although I'll be around I don't intend to be running at 20,000 miles an hour trying to prove myself. I don't want to die at 40."
John Lennon
"When I write, there are times -- not always -- when I hear John (Lennon) in my head, ... I'll think, OK, what would we have done here?, and I can hear him gripe or approve.”
Paul McCartney
"I'd rather be a musician than a rockstar."
George Harrison
“A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality.”
John Lennon
"I never really got on that well with Yoko anyway. Strangely enough, I only started to get to know her after John's death."
Paul McCartney
"I've always thought there was this underlying thing in Paul's 'Get Back.' When we were in the studio recording it, every time he sang the line 'Get back to where you once belonged," he'd look at Yoko."
John Lennon
“No, I've got my band, and he's got his. It's never going to happen. We're both doing other things now.”
Ringo Starr, 2005, when asked if he and Paul would ever tour together
“The door’s always open for a meeting, although to be realistic it would have to be on Paul’s volition. But we’re not starry-eyed youngsters anymore, it would be nice to meet just for posterity. There were some great moments in Liverpool when we were kids.”
Pete Best, about the possibility of a meeting with the other surviving former Beatles
"When we were starting off as kids, just the idea of maybe going to do this as a living instead of getting what we thought was going to be a boring job, was exciting."
Paul McCartney
"I didn't leave the Beatles. The Beatles have left the Beatles, but no one wants to be the one to say the party's over."
John Lennon
"I didn't like the look of Rory's drummer myself. He looked the nasty one, with his little grey streak of hair. But the nasty one turned out to be Ringo, the nicest of them all."
George Harrison
"So we went in and we did the album in twelve hours... because we did everything we'd been doing on the road for the last year or so, you know."
Ringo Starr on recording the Beatles' first album
"Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans."
John Lennon, from his song 'Beautiful Boy' (1980)
“I am devastated and very, very sad, ... We knew he'd been ill for a long time. He was a lovely guy and a very brave man and had a wonderful sense of humor. He is really just my baby brother.”
Paul McCartney, after the death of George
"When I'm ninety-five and it's 'This is Your Life' time, they'll still be referring to me as 'ex-Beatle'...it does have it's advantages. It's still the best way to get a good table at a resturant."
Ringo Starr
"The Beatles is over, but John, Paul, George, and Ringo...God knows what relationship they'll have in the future. I don't know. I still love those guys! Because they'll always be those people who were that part of my life."
John Lennon
"The Beatles will go on and on."
George Harrison
