If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.
Paul McCartney
In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.
I used to think that anyone doing anything weird was weird. I suddenly realized that anyone doing anything weird wasn't weird at all and it was the people saying they were weird that were weird.
Think globally, act locally.
I've got to admit it's getting better. It's a little better all the time.
I don't work at being ordinary.
The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.
None of us wanted to be the bass player. In our minds he was the fat guy who always played at the back.
So, if I'm cooking, I'll be steaming vegetables, making some nice salad, that kind of stuff.
Somebody said to me, 'But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, 'Now, let's write a swimming pool.'
Nothing pleases me more than to go into a room and come out with a piece of music.
I used to think anyone doing anything weird was weird. Now I know that it is the people that call others weird that are weird.
It's time to end the cruel slaughter of whales and leave these magnificent creatures alone.
Somewhere down the line everyone must pay for their misdeeds.
I'm not religious, but I'm very spiritual.
When you first get money, you buy all these things so no one thinks you're mean, and you spread it around. You get a chauffeur and you find yourself thrown around the back of this car and you think, I was happier when I had my own little car! I could drive myself!
One of my biggest thrills for me still is sitting down with a guitar or a piano and just out of nowhere trying to make a song happen.
But with writers, there's nothing wrong with melancholy. It's an important color in writing.
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.
We were a savage little lot, Liverpool kids, not pacifist or vegetarian or anything. But I feel I've gone beyond that, and that it was immature to be so prejudiced and believe in all the stereotypes.
Why would I retire? Sit at home and watch TV? No thanks. I'd rather be out playing.
I never look forward, because I have no idea about how any of it happened to getting here. I've no idea how the next five years are going to be.
I saw that Meryl Streep said, I just want to do my job well. And really, that's all I'm ever trying to do.
Buy, buy, says the sign in the shop window; Why, why, says the junk in the yard.
There are only four people who knew what the Beatles were about anyway.
I don't take me seriously. If we get some giggles, I don't mind.
It was Elvis who really got me hooked on beat music. When I heard 'Heartbreak Hotel' I thought, this is it.
I look a lot busier than I am, as I'm actually a rather sporadic, random person and I'll play a few gigs and then disappear for a while.
I feel that if I said anything about John, I would have to sit here for five days and say it all. Or I don't want to say anything.
I can't deal with the press; I hate all those Beatles questions.
With the Beatles, we'd been very spoiled because we had George Martin who worked for the record label we were going to be signed to. That was very fortunate, because we grew together.
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.
If children are studying the 20th century, I'm in their text books.
I got my first guitar when I was 15, and I just used to fool about with it, more or less, as time went by, though, I got more interested.
I'm often reading a magazine and hearing about someone's new record, and I think, 'Oh, boy, that's gonna be better than me.' It's a very common thing.
I had this song called Helter Skelter, which is just a ridiculous song. So we did it like that, 'cuz I like noise.
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.
I'm a pretty hands-on dad and make the most of my custody. I take care of my little one whenever I can, and she determines what I can do and where I can do it.
George Martin, he's very good at a very sort of lush, sweet arrangement.
We were pretty good mates until the Beatles started to split up and Yoko came into it. It was more like old army buddies splitting up on account of wedding bells.
Look, people are allowed their own opinions and they don't always coincide with yours. As an artist you just have to keep plugging on.
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.
Looking back, I think I was always musical. My dad was very musical, and I think my mom was musical.
My dad was a particularly polite kind of guy, very courteous.
I think people who create and write, it actually does flow-just flows from into their head, into their hand, and they write it down. It's simple.
She is the rock 'n' roll queen. Weirdly enough, that is one of the things her reign will be remembered for. Queen Elizabeth I, we remember Raleigh; Queen Elizabeth II it's gonna be the Beatles.
My so-called career is a haphazard thing.
I was still 15 when I met John Lennon at a village fete in Woolton, in Liverpool.
Microphones are just like people, if you shout at them, they get scared.
When I sit down to write a song, it's a kind of improvisation, but I formalize it a bit to get it into the studio, and when I step up to a microphone, I have a vague idea of what I'm about to do.
