Top 474 Beatles Quotes

I love the Beatles. Now I know I’m a good few decades late on this one, but I’ve always been behind the curve.

If I were in the Beatles, I’d be a good George Harrison.

The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Barbra Streisand, Bruce Springsteen, these are just some of the people who threatened to sue if we used their songs.

When punk came along, I found my generation’s music. I grew up listening to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and Pink Floyd, ’cause that was what got played in the house. But when I first saw the Stranglers, I thought, ‘This is it.’

Listen to the Beatles’ ‘Things We Said Today.’ Ringo Starr does not play a fill in the entire song. It doesn’t need it. ‘A Day In the Life’ has gorgeous fills, but there, the song needs it. When I play on any record, I’m striving to get where Ringo is. You play what doesn’t take you out of the song.

They said hey look, The Beatles deserve to be number one, not Bobby Vinton. We’re gonna cut your tires. Change that listing. They were dedicated at the time.

When people are recording, and they’re like, ‘I want to get the drum sound of the Beatles,’ I hate that.

The reason I got into music was obviously because of bands like The Beatles and Pink Floyd, things like that.

I don’t think there’s anything anybody’s doing that the Beatles didn’t at least try at some point.

By 1968, both The Beatles and The Beach Boys had plenty of fame – we were looking for something deeper. The Maharishi taught us how to go beyond thinking and action in order to grow from within.

I haven’t been afraid of John Coltrane or Miles Davis or Bill Evans or Wayne Shorter or Herbie Hancock. Why would I be afraid of the Beatles?

I went from being a kid-kid, listen to everything from The Beatles through Kiss, Peter Frampton, Jethro Tull classic rock, classic stuff into immediately, it seemed like, Iron Maiden and stuff like that. The first Iron Maiden record and then, obviously, the first Metallica record.

I wish I lived in the ’60s because I’m a big fan of the Beatles.

I did not break up the Beatles. You can’t have it both ways. If you’re going to blame me for breaking the Beatles up, you should be thankful that I made them into myth rather than a crumbling group.

The Beatles and The Stones were basically inspired by American Rhythm and Blues.

I have been influenced by many different artists at many different stages of my life. Starting out, it was people like Elton John, Billy Joel, Ben Folds, and Fiona Apple. As I got older I got deeper into the work of bands like the Beatles, artists like Sam Cooke, Ray Charles, Etta James, and Joni Mitchell.

The British invasion was the most important event of my life. I was in New Jersey and the night I saw the Beatles changed everything. I had seen Elvis before and he had done nothing for me, but these guys were in a band.

When I was growing up, my brother liked the Beatles, and I liked the Rolling Stones. I think if I were a girl, Keith would be the one I fancied.

At one point, we were across the street from the Sharon Tate house; at another, we lived in Elvis’s old Bel Air bachelor pad. It was where he first met the Beatles.

What good are three Beatles without John?

I didn’t like any British music before The Beatles. For me, it was all about black American music. But then I became a successful pop singer, even though the kind of music I liked was more elitist, which is what I’m trying to get back to.

Some people’s parents listened to the Beatles… but my family is Alquimia, Celia Cruz, and Carlos Vives – this old, rich Colombian music. I loved hearing that while I was growing up.

It’s nearly redundant to enumerate the reasons The Beatles are important. There are probably different reasons why The Beatles are important to a musician like myself and to the millions of Beatles fans who just enjoy listening to the music.

I listened to oldies radio stations as a kid; lots of Kinks and Beatles and ’50s hits.

The Beatles and I became fast friends.

And so we went away to play, and we’d come back to Liverpool. And while we were doing this – ‘cuz we did it for two years. And then we’d go to Germany, and that’s where I met the Beatles.

‘The Beatles’ did whatever they wanted. They were a collection of influences adapted to songs they wanted to write. George Harrison was instrumental in bringing in Indian music. Paul McCartney was a huge Little Richard fan. John Lennon was into minimalist aggressive rock.

The best pop music is the songs that a group of people can dance to, but you can also listen to in your bed and cry. That’s something obviously that The Beatles started and… so having that darkness there opens another door.

I’ve been playing my instrument since I was about three or four. That’s when I started banging around on the piano, trying to be like The Beatles.

Just about every rock band and every guitar player from 1964 to 1984. To me, that’s the golden period of rock. From the first Beatles album hitting America to the last Van Halen album with David Lee Roth. That’s where all my favorite rock exists.

I try to create something that draws you in without overthinking it. Something that resonates with you automatically that you don’t have to think about. That’s what the best pop is about: Michael Jackson, The Beatles, Nirvana – these guys made some of the most authentic and popular music.

I thought if Oasis could get away with sounding like The Beatles, I could get away with sounding like Abba.

There were some great tunes played between ’67 and ’73. The Beatles were everywhere in those days, the most famous people in the world. You couldn’t avoid them if you wanted. Not that I did.

He made it quite clear that if I didn’t play the role, I would be dead within a week. As you can imagine, the guy who turned down Hagrid would be like the guy who called the Beatles a guitar band. So I couldn’t possibly refuse, really.

I was always introduced as the Beatles photographer and I gave it up in the end. I was so unsure of myself. Am I good or am I just the Beatles photographer? People were not interested in what I did before. I could not stand it any more.

Coming from art school, I had a great sense of style – as did The Beatles and the Stones – and I enjoyed projecting that. Image, attitude, great music and great lyrics – that was the ’60s.

As a writer, I’ve always been the sum total of my influences, and those are all over the spectrum: Rachmaninov, the Who, the Beatles, the Beach Boys, Lesley Gore, Burt Bacharach and Leonard Bernstein, the Rolling Stones and the Small Faces.

I think my favorite song is by Led Zeppelin called ‘Good Times Bad Times,’ a Rolling Stones song called ‘You Can’t Always Get What You Want,’ and every song The Beatles ever wrote.

Being a guy who was a geek with tape machines in the early days and really interested in how records get made, I was inspired in particular by how the Beatles were innovating when they were making those records late in their career while using the studio in a maximal way.

My roots are more in he Beatles, Zeppelin, the whole 60’s side.

It’s insane that, since the Beatles and Dylan, it’s assumed that all musicians should do everything themselves. It’s that ridiculous, teenage idea that when Mick Jagger sings, he’s telling you something about his own life. It’s so arrogant to think that people would want to know about it anyway!

One of my main problems with music is that the basic formula is always the same: verse, chorus, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus, chorus, chorus, end. One of the bands that changed that was The Beatles. If you listen to ‘Everybody’s Got Something to Hide Except Me and My Monkey.’ It’s three verses, bridge, end.

It’s true that when I was younger and I first got interested in music, I used to read books about the Stones and the Beatles and how they listened to Muddy Waters and people like that when they were starting out, who are much less well known now than the Rolling Stones. The Stones really changed blues.

I love the Beatles, but I don’t listen to them at all regularly. Most of my friends are bigger Beatles fans than I am. I respect them, and I love them – ‘Abbey Road’ is probably one of my favorite albums, but I don’t think I’ve ever listened to the ‘White Album’ the whole way through.

I actually didn’t listen to the Beatles song ‘Nowhere Man’ when I was writing my book of the same name. What I listened to a lot was ‘Abbey Road.’ Its disjointedness and its readiness to confuse only to delight were inspiring to me.

If you think about it, for almost any moment, any mood that you might be in, there’s probably a Beatles song that will address that mood, that feeling, that set of emotions. I don’t know that that can be said about very many groups, if any.

While the Beatles always had George Martin around to clean up their act, the Rolling Stones had Andrew Loog Oldham to coarsen theirs.

But times changed, and I changed, and I didn’t feel that way anymore. The Beatles were happening. I think that was probably the main thing. The Beatles just changed the whole world of music.

I have a very eclectic iPod. So I’ve got my cardio people – so it’s anything from Beyonce to some Jay-Z to Janelle Monae, her song ‘Tightrope,’ that’s a good cardio song. And then I’ve got Sting. I’ve got Mary J. Blige. I’ve got The Beatles. I’ve got Michael Jackson. I try to pick the songs that I personally love.