Beatle Quotes & Sayings

As a general rule, fans and idols should always be kept at arm's length, the length of the arm to be proportionate to the degree of sheer idolatry involved. Don't take a Beatle to lunch. Don't wait up to see if the Easter Bunny is real. Just enjoy the egg hunt. — Shana Alexander

I do write my own music, and I also have been doing a lot of non-Beatle covers, just singing whatever I want to sing, the way I want to sing. But it can be hard to find the time to do that. — Steve Landes

Contrary to reports, this boy is not a billionaire or going to be richer than any Beatle ... and not just in the sense of money, by the way; the Beatles are untouchable - those billionaire reports are a joke. — Bono

Because of the attitude of a few mental dinosaurs intent on exploiting our initial success, Brian's huge talent has never been fully appreciated in America and the potential of the group has been stifled ... If the Beatles had suffered this kind of misrepresentation, they would have never got past singing 'Please Please Me' and 'I WannaHold Your Hand' and leaping around in Beatle suits. — Dennis Wilson

As a Beatle, my everyday life belonged to the public in one way or another. We were always appearing for the public in the early days, or we were planning for them, producing for them, interviewing for their sake, etc. — George Harrison

I'd like to think that all the old Beatle fans have grown up and they've got married and they've all got kids and they're all more responsible, but they still have a space in their hearts for us. — George Harrison

There's a joke about the balloon boy who has a balloon mum and a balloon dad and he goes to a balloon school with balloon friends ad a balloon principal. And one day, the balloon boy decides to take a pin to his balloon school, which is, of course, a disaster. And he's called into the balloon principal's office, and the balloon principal tells him, 'You've let me down, you've let your school down, you've let your parents down, you've let your friends down. But most importantly you've let yourself down'. — Gabrielle Williams

Paul McCartney, the ex-Beatle Brady's mom used to call Old Spaniel Eyes, is getting a medal at the White House. Why is it, Brady sometimes wonders, that people with only a little talent get so much of everything? It's just another proof that the world is crazy. — Stephen King

When LOVE played the still hipper Whisky A Go-Go, further west along Sunset, Arthur Lee claims they 'started the whole hippy thing' in tandem with an in-crowd of freaks led by aging beatnik sculptor Vito Paulekas. It was Vito, Carl Franzoni, Sue, Beatle Bob, Bryan Maclean and me ... people would come to Ben Frank's to hang out with us after we played shows. — Barney Hoskyns

I did art; I made furniture. I didn't want to be a cliche - the Beatle's son who became a musician. — James McCartney

There is not one thing that's Beatle music. How can they talk about it like that? What is Beatle music? Walrus or Penny Lane? Which? It's too diverse: I Want to Hold Your Hand or Revolution Number Nine? — John Lennon

I didn't marry a Beatle, I married a broke student who played the guitar and ponced all my grant money off me for fags. — Cynthia Lennon

Every night I fell asleep to a different Beatles album. So I'm very familiar with the Beatles; Ringo was my favorite Beatle until I grew up and then changed. I made the switch over to George Harrison just in time to regain my cool. — Christina Ricci

I'd love to be in Paul McCartney's shoes for a day. I'd love to pick up a guitar and write songs like he does. Or to experience what it might have been like to be a Beatle for a day. — Tom Felton

Man with goatee. Man who looked like a Beatle. All the Beatles at once. Woman wearing newspaper hat. I'd grown used to how weird New Yorkers were, and I could fit them into types. — Olivia Sudjic

If anyone was the Fifth Beatle, it was Brian [Epstein]. — Paul McCartney

The kids are interested in the music of them. They're not interested in mop-tops and Beatle boots and crazy suits. It's all down to the music now - that's what they hear, and that's what they love. — Ringo Starr

The Beatles exist apart from my Self. I am not really Beatle George. Beatle George is like a suit or shirt that I once wore on occasion and until the end of my life people may see that shirt and mistake it for me. — George Harrison

One story sums up their magical quality. On June 30th 1968, at the height of Apple optimism, Paul McCartney and Derek Taylor were driving back to London from Saltaire, Yorkshire, where they had been recording the Black Dyke Mills Band on a song of Paul's called 'Thingummybob'. They were in Bedfordshire. Let's pick a village on the map and pay it a visit, said Beatle Paul. He found a village called Harrold, which they found quite hilarious, and turned off the A5. Harrold turned out to be a picture-perfect village, with a picture-perfect pub at its heart. The pub was closed, but when the villagers saw there was a Beatle at the door they opened it up. Soon the whole village was in the pub, listening to Paul McCartney on the pub piano playing the as-yet-unreleased 'Hey Jude'. Every Harrold resident danced and sang along, and the revelry went on until 3 a.m. It was beautiful, perfect, spontaneous and full of love. Harrold. You couldn't make it up. — Bob Stanley

John Lennon was definitely my favorite Beatle, hands down. — Kurt Cobain

It is the sound of the crowd that can be heard in the second, crescendoing rush of the orchestra that follows the final verse, rising from a hum to a gasp to a shout... fusing at last to a shriek (its similarity to the sound of the crowds at Beatle concerts is surely no accident). The onrushing sound of the orchestra at the end of "A Day in the Life" has transcended more than the conventions of Sgt. Pepper's Band. It is the nightmare resolution of the Beatles' show within a show. It is the sound in the eras of the high-wire artist as the ground rushes up from below. There is a blinding flash of silence, then the stunning impact of a tremendous E major piano chord that hangs in the air for a small eternity, slowly fading away, a forty-second meditation on finality that leaves each member if the audience listening with a new kind of attention and awareness to the sound of nothing at all. — Jonathan Gould

My cousins and I used to play Beatle wives. We all wanted to be married to Paul, but John was O.K. too. None of us wanted Ringo. Or even worse, George. — Ann Hood

The idea of being a rock and roll musician sort of suited my talents and mentality. The freedom was great, but then I found out I wasn't free. I'd got boxed in ... The whole Beatle thing is just beyond comprehension ... subconsciously I was crying for help. — John Lennon

I wanted to be the fifth Beatle. — Ozzy Osbourne

Lack of feeling in an emotional sense is responsible for the way some singers do our songs. They don't understand and are too old to grasp the feeling. Beatles are really the only people who can play Beatle music. — John Lennon

Prime ministers require the hide of a rhinoceros, the morals of St. Francis, the patience of Job, the wisdom of Solomon, the strength of Hercules, the leadership of Napoleon, the magnetism of a Beatle and the subtlety of Machiavelli. — Lester B. Pearson

Cynthia Lennon, the first wife of former Beatle John Lennon and the mother of singer Julian Lennon, died April 1 at her home in Spain. She was 75. — Anonymous

Home life is best for me. But I do enjoy the company of good friends whether from long ago or newer friends who only know me as George, not the ex-Beatle. — George Harrison

My parents were Beatle fans, but my mom was especially a Lennon fan, so I was exposed to him more. I remember her playing 'Double Fantasy' quite often. — Sam Taylor-Johnson

It doesn't matter whether you're the king of a country or ... a fabulous Beatle; it's what's inside that counts. — George Harrison

People only look at me as a Beatle, but my friends look at me as a whole person. That's how life works, but it's not bugging me anymore. — Ringo Starr

Someone like John would want to end the Beatle period and start the Yoko period. He wouldn't like either to interfere with the other. — Paul McCartney

I do think that my Indian classical audiences thought I was sacrificing them through working with George; I became known as the 'fifth Beatle.' In India, they thought I was mad. — Ravi Shankar

The sixties have a reputation for being open and free and cool, but the reality was that everybody was straight. Everybody was totally straight and then there was Us - this pocketful of nuts. We had long hair, and we'd get chased down the block. People would chase you for ten blocks, screaming, "Beatle!" They were out of their fucking minds- that was the reality of the sixties. Nobody had long hair- you were a fucking freack, you were a fruit, you were not like the rest of the world. - Ronnie Cutrone (1965-1968) — Legs McNeil

That Beatle euphoria has always been there, and it's hard to be in a room with a Beatle and try to be totally natural. You never shake that off. — Alan Parsons

They used us as an excuse to go mad and then blamed it on us. Gandhi says create and preserve the image of your choice. The image of my choice is not Beatle George - those who want that can go and see Wings. Why live in the past? Be here now. — George Harrison

Even if it's being a Beatle for the rest of my life, it's still only a temporary thing. — George Harrison

People always say I'm the Beatle who changed the most, but really that's what I see life is about ... you have to change. — George Harrison

I fell in love with a man, not a Beatle. — Heather Mills

That incident ruined my reputation for 10 years. Get one Beatle drunk and look what happens! — Harry Nilsson

We play some of my stuff and we play some Beatle covers. — Lou Gramm

The whole Beatle thing was just beyond comprehension. When 'Help' came out, I was actually crying out for help. Most people think it's just a fast rock 'n roll song. I didn't realize it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie. But later, I knew I really was crying out for help. — John Lennon

If you listen to the great Beatle records, the earliest ones where the lyrics are incredibly simple. Why are they still beautiful? Well, they're beautifully sung, beautifully played, and the mathematics in them is elegant. They retain their elegance. — Bruce Springsteen

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

I know chances are if I don't give an interview or make a public appearance or statement from time to time, they'll invent one. Every so often, I suppose people ask, 'Whatever happened to that other Beatle, George Harrison?' And someone comes around with a ready answer, no matter how preposterous it seems. It's possibly the worst price one has to pay for what they call stardom. — George Harrison

The way some people read the parables reminds me of Aesop's Fables. And the way others read them reminds me of the way some discern clue after perplexing clue in their Beatle albums as evidence for a cover-up of Paul's having died in a car accident. — Jared C. Wilson

I used to think that all my Wings stuff was second-rate stuff, but I began to meet younger kids, not kids from my Beatle generation, who would say, We really love this song. — Paul McCartney

Bought all the Beatle records, I sounded just like Paul. — Mac Davis

Fondest memory of being a Beatle: Having three brothers. — Ringo Starr

Every time, my syncopation is different, because I can never play the same fill twice. I just can't, never have been able to. Even as a Beatle, they'd say, 'Oh, double-track that.' I don't know how you do that, because when I'm in a fill I'm sort of this blackout, just this pure me coming out and I can't pure me the same, twice. So, that's that. — Ringo Starr

Left all my Beatle records out in the sun, got a coke bottle stuck on the end of my tongue. — Al Yankovic

When I was a kid, I was playing in various bands - amateur bands, garage bands, weekend bands, you name it, around the area. At some point, I just wanted to try the whole 'Beatle tribute band' thing, so I found a local band that was doing that. — Steve Landes

Ringo, the last to become a Beatle, came into the group not because I wanted him, but because the boys did. To be completely honest, I was not at all keen to have him. I thought his drumming rather loud, his appearance unimpressive, and I could not see why he was important to the Beatles. But again I trusted their instincts and I am grateful now. He has become an excellent Beatle and a devoted friend. Ringo is warm and wry-witted, a good drummer, and I like him enormously. He is a very uncomplicated, very nice young man. — Brian Epstein

I went over to say hi to Rob and he introduced me to Wayne and Fred. I had made a radical purchase of some brown Beatle boots. Wayne was like 'Where did you get those boots! Who is this guy? — Michael Davis

We was on our way to fame, got matching suits and Beatle boots. — Frank Zappa

That thing about being an icon, the fifth Beatle, I just found it so freaky. — George Best

Beatle bones and smokin' stones the dry sands fall. — Don Van Vliet

Ringo Starr may not have much of a voice, but when he sang a song on a Beatle album, it had its own special charm. — Jon Landau

Beatle's wrote the Nike song and called it macaroni. — Sheryl Crow

George Harrison was known as the quiet Beatle. Quiet people are often quiet because they are deep thinkers. — Ray Comfort