Paul McCartney quotes:

The Stones also still have a huge following. Mick Jagger leaps around like a crazy dude. And Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts are playing great too.

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.

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.

Buy, buy, says the sign in the shop window; Why, why, says the junk in the yard.

And I loved Fats Waller. I love his instrumental abilities, his vocal abilities and his sense of humor.

John's time and effort were, in the main, spent on pretty honorable stuff. As for the other side, well, nobody's perfect, nobody's Jesus. And look what they did to him.

I knew the words to 25 rock songs, so I got in the group. Long Tall Sally and Tutti-Frutti, that got me in. That was my audition.

I think I always had a musicality, and I think I could tell a good song from a bad song. And I would appreciate hearing something that was new to me.

I love the past. There are parts of the past I hate, of course.

None of us wanted to be the bass player. In our minds he was the fat guy who always played at the back.

It's time to end the cruel slaughter of whales and leave these magnificent creatures alone.

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.

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.

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.

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.

I can take pot or leave it. I got busted in Japan for it. I was nine days without it and there wasn't a hint of withdrawal, nothing.

To keep the record straight, it wasn't always John and Yoko. We've all accused one another of various business things; we tend to be pretty paranoid by now, as you can imagine. There's a lot of money involved.

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.

If children are studying the 20th century, I'm in their text books.

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.

The interesting thing about the Beatles was: The music was one thing, but we kind of symbolized a certain kind of freedom at a time when people of our generation were just growing up and just becoming adults.

Late at night when the wind is still I'll come flying through your door, And you'll know what love is for. I am a bluebird, I'm a bluebird...

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!

By the time we made "Abbey Road", John and I were openly critical of each other's music, and I felt John wasn't much interested in performing anything he hadn't written himself.

I hate the idea of success robbing you of your private life.

Why would I retire? Sit at home and watch TV? No thanks. I'd rather be out playing.

But you know, as a kid I would have thought of a vegetarian as a wimp.

In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.

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.

I think the pop industry is still a young man's game.

I love to hear a choir. I love the humanity... to see the faces of real people devoting themselves to a piece of music. I like the teamwork. It makes me feel optimistic about the human race when I see them cooperating like that.

That's not really important what religion people are attached to, because by the same argument I have a lot of Christian friends and Moslem friends. It's just happened that I do have a lot of relatives and friends who are Jewish.

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.

I don't ever try to make a serious social comment.

If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.

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.

I had this song called Helter Skelter, which is just a ridiculous song. So we did it like that, 'cuz I like noise.

We would normally play it to Cynthia or whoever was around

I don't have any desire to learn. I feel it's like a voodoo, that it would spoil things if I actually learnt how things are done.

There are a lot of artists who haven't lost anything to domesticity. In my case, it probably did happen.

If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat. That's the single most important thing you could do. It's staggering when you think about it. Vegetarianism takes care of so many things in one shot: ecology, famine, cruelty.

If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat.

My brother's researched our early family history. He found a letter from a fella who said he used to be in love with my mum.

I am a vegetarian because I realized that even little chickens suffer pain and fear, experience a range of feelings and emotions, and are as intelligent as mammals, including dogs, cats, and even some primates.

Trumpets are a bit more adventurous; they're drunk! Trumpeters are generally drunk. It wets their whistle.

Jet, I can almost remember their funny faces

There's nothing like the eureka moment of knocking off a song that didn't exist before - I won't compare it to sex, but it lasts longer.

I don't take me seriously. If we get some giggles, I don't mind.

It's as serious as anyone ever gets, you know. It's just words. It's just good poetry.

Love Me Do, the first song we recorded, John was supposed to sing the lead, but they changed their minds and asked me to sing lead because they wanted John to play harmonica.

When I left the Beatles, I made an album called McCartney that I played everything on. And it was kind of a cool experience. I felt like a professor in a laboratory, just crafting stuff and adding this, and putting this on and moving the microphone, and it was very homemade.

I can't manage without homeopathy. In fact, I never go anywhere without homeopathic remedies. I often make use of them.

When two great saints meet, it's a humbling experience.

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.

Close your eyes and I'll kiss you, Tomorrow I'll miss you.

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.

The planet is under pressure and our choices have never been more important. The Food Revolution Summit is an informative and empowering platform which highlights ways to set a new pattern for the future of the planet.

Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony, side by side on my keyboard piano, oh Lord, why don't we?

When a war is over I think it's a cowardly thing to leave the war behind you in minefields that hit women and children and the most vulnerable. Imagine the war is finished and you go to work and there are snipers shooting at you. Imagine taking your kids to the beach and you find that the beach is blowing up beneath you. Like there's nowhere safe.

Take these broken wings and learn to fly.

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.

It comes in handy in situations like that. People always expect you to be riding around in stretch limousines all the time, but I will sometimes take public transportation if it's convenient, and it does surprise people, you see the heads turn.

When you were young, and your heart, was an open book. You used to say, live and let live.

When you get the money, you still need to keep going; you don't stop. There has to be something else. I think it's the freedom to do what you want and to live your dreams.

All the lonely people, where do they all come from?

I still believe that love is all you need. I don't know a better message than that.

It (LSD) opened my eyes. We only use one-tenth of our brain. Just think of what we could accomplish if we could only tap that hidden part! It would mean a whole new world if the politicians would take LSD. There wouldn't be any more war or poverty or famine.

I don't think of myself as a legend. I just love what I do. I love playing with my band, I love going to beautiful places and give people good music. I love what I do, I`m very lucky man.

I have always adored Mahler, and Mahler was a major influence on the music of the Beatles. John and me used to sit and do the Kindertotenlieder and Wunderhorn for hours, we'd take turns singing and playing the piano. We thought Mahler was gear.

There will be no wardrobe malfunction with me. I can promise you that.... I have nothing I will be exposing or taking off.

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.'

I used to go round to Aunt Mimi's house and John would be at the typewriter, which was fairly unusual in Liverpool. None of my mates even knew what a typewriter was. Well they knew what it was but they didn't hae one. Nobody had one.

Nothing pleases me more than to go into a room and come out with a piece of music.

Hamburg totally wrecked us. I remember getting home to England and my dad thought I was half-dead. I looked like a skeleton, I hadn't noticed the change, I'd been having such a ball!

I don't work at being ordinary.

My record producer [David Kahne] said the major record labels these days are like dinosaurs sitting around discussing the asteroid. They know it's going to hit. They don't know when, they don't know where it's coming from. But it's sort of hit already. With iTunes, and all of that.

He's (Ringo Starr) not even the best drummer in the Beatles....

Alas, it looks like those unsubstantiated rumours about me are about to come true after all this time...

Will you still need me,will you still feed me..When I'm sixty-four?

You can judge a man's true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.

I never really got on that well with Yoko anyway. Strangely enough, I only started to get to know her after John's death.

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.

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.

Microphones are just like people, if you shout at them, they get scared.

And, in the endThe love you takeis equal to the love you make.

What I have to say is all in the music. If I want to say anything, I write a song.

My dad, bless him, was a musician. And his dad had thought that his music was rubbish.

Domesticity is the enemy of art. I don't know if that's true. You can write good happy songs. So, I don't think it's necessarily happiness. But I think self-satisfaction is maybe the enemy. It's kind of better to think, "Tomorrow night I'm gonna sing it better." There is this forward effort. It feels to me right, it feels human.

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.

I support decriminalisation. People are smoking pot anyway and to make them into criminals is wrong. It's when you're in jail you really become a criminal.

So, if I'm cooking, I'll be steaming vegetables, making some nice salad, that kind of stuff.

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.

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.

And Jet, I thought the Major was a lady suffragette.

There must be a better way to make the things we want, a way that doesn't spoil the sky, or the rain or the land

I think the idea of getting out of a traffic jam and getting out of work each week and going and doing all this stuff would be really exhausting.

I think [Transcendental Meditation] is what people need. They don't need high minded talk, they need results.

Transcendental Meditation gives me an island of calm in the midst of so much turbulence.

I do like Eddie Van Halen as a player. He gets it right quite often.

When you're wide awake say it for goodness sake, it's gonna be a great day.

The long and winding road that leads to your door / Will never disappear, / I've seen that road before it always leads me here, / Leads me to your door.

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 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.

I was still 15 when I met John Lennon at a village fete in Woolton, in Liverpool.

My old school in Liverpool is now a performing-arts school, and I kind of teach there - I use the word lightly - but I go there and talk to students.

Think globally, act locally.

George Martin, he's very good at a very sort of lush, sweet arrangement.

But with writers, there's nothing wrong with melancholy. It's an important color in writing.

Somewhere down the line everyone must pay for their misdeeds.

You see, my mother was a district nurse until she died when I was 14, and we used to move from time to time because of her work.

I like the idea that people hear my stuff, and if it's commercially successful, that's a good sign that it's being heard.

My dad was a particularly polite kind of guy, very courteous.

Where I come from, you don't really talk about how much you're earning. Those things are private. My dad never told my mum how much he was earning. I'm certainly not going to tell the world. I'm doing well.

It was Elvis who really got me hooked on beat music. When I heard 'Heartbreak Hotel' I thought, this is it.

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.

I've got to admit it's getting better. It's a little better all the time.

My so-called career is a haphazard thing.

...We can work it out. Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting, my friend.

A hundred years from now, people will listen to the music of the Beatles the same way we listen to Mozart.

A lot of artists use memories. A lot of prose writers, a lot of poets, a lot of songwriters, refer back to something. Generally it's all you've got, unless you're brilliant and can write totally in the now.