Ringo Starr famous quotes

Everything government touches turns to crap.
-- Ringo Starr

#Government #Liberty #Turns

We [the band] had this open door policy - if you walked in the door, you were asked to play
-- Ringo Starr

#Play #Doors #Band

Let's make my birthday, July the 7th at noon, Peace and Love Day. Everybody go, 'Peace and love.' In the office, on the bus, wherever. It's still peace and love for me, I'm a product of the 60s and it was a very influential period in my life, and you know, my head was turned around a bit, my eyes were opened as it were. In fact, I even have it on my arm, 'Peace and love'. I see nothing wrong with peace and love.
-- Ringo Starr

#Eye #July #Office

I think I'm more prolific in the songwriting.
-- Ringo Starr

#Thinking #Songwriting

I'm on my feet and I'm doing what I love to do, and I'm in a profession, as a musician, where we can go on for as long as we can go on.
-- Ringo Starr

#Feet #Long #Goes On

My occupation is syncopation. But, every time, my syncopation is different, because I can never play the same fill twice. I just can't, never have been able to.
-- Ringo Starr

#Play #Able #Different

The Beatles were just four guys that loved each other. That's all they'll ever be.
-- Ringo Starr

#Guy #Four

I never take it as any real pressure. It's like my son. I only gave him one lesson. When I went to give him the second one he said, 'Oh, I can do that dad.' I said, 'Now you're on your own.'
-- Ringo Starr

#Dad #Real #Son

Take a dose of rock and roll, and wash it down with cool clear soul.
-- Ringo Starr

#Rock And Roll #Rocks #Soul

I'm a musician and I'm really blessed, because in my life if I can hold the sticks, I can play.
-- Ringo Starr

#Blessed #Play #Sticks

I never studied anything, really. I didn't study the drums. I joined bands and made all the mistakes onstage.
-- Ringo Starr

#Mistake #Band #Study

I hate click tracks. I'm to busy in the click track to feel my own heart rhythm, my own soul beat.
-- Ringo Starr

#Hate #Heart #Track

Of course I'm ambitious. What's wrong with that? Otherwise you sleep all day.
-- Ringo Starr

#Sleep #Goal #Musical

I was in George Martin's studio in Amsterdam and he was telling me, 'They come in here and it takes them three days to do a bass line.' Well I'm not from that era.
-- Ringo Starr

#Lines #Bass #Amsterdam

We will miss George for his sense of love, his sense of music and his sense of laughter.
-- Ringo Starr

#Laughter #Missing

I've always been playing with other people, and that's how I learned. I got a kit of drums I couldn't play, but I also knew a guitarist and a friend of mine played bass and could teach us bass, and we just played. And I learned...
-- Ringo Starr

#Play #People #Bass

I hope the fans will take up meditation instead of drugs.
-- Ringo Starr

#Meditation #Drug #Fans

I have no anonymity.I've not had a drink in nine and a half years. That's my whole story right there.
-- Ringo Starr

#Years #Stories #Half

When I was thirteen I only wanted to be a drummer.
-- Ringo Starr

#Drummer #Thirteen #Wanted

With God's help, I've not had a drink in nine and a half years. That's my whole story right there. And because of that, I'm doing this. I'm making records, I'm touring. I was so involved in just getting brain damaged, I wasn't doing anything. I had great ideas, many notebooks filled with notes, some of them I can read and some of them I just can't read, but I really didn't do anything constructive, it was all just good ideas. Now I'm trying to lead a constructive life a day at a time.
-- Ringo Starr

#Notebook #Years #Ideas

I'm not sleeping with all the women I appear with.
-- Ringo Starr

#Sleep #Not Sleeping

I am truly grateful. I'm a grateful human being.
-- Ringo Starr

#Grateful #Humans

Well, I'm getting happier all the time, which is very nice.
-- Ringo Starr

#Nice #Wells #Very Nice

I don't particularly like messages, because everybody takes whatever they take from whatever.
-- Ringo Starr

#Messages

I like Beethoven, especially the poems.
-- Ringo Starr

#Rock N Roll

Do you remember when everyone began analyzing Beatles songs..I don't think I ever understood what some of them were supposed to be about
-- Ringo Starr

#Song #Thinking #Analyzing

I think we should have understanding and love and peace. I mean, peace and love has been my situation. You hear that in the song. I'm trying to promote that now: peace and love and understanding.
-- Ringo Starr

#Song #Mean #Thinking

That's all drugs and alcohol do, they cut off your emotions in the end.
-- Ringo Starr

#Cutting #Alcohol #Drug

I'm like everyone else, on the stage it's good. Not too much fun in the hotel or the airplane or the bus, but you got to do it.
-- Ringo Starr

#Fun #Airplane #Too Much

Beatles, women and children first!
-- Ringo Starr

#Children #Firsts

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

#Play #Track #Able

I've never really done anything to create what has happened. It creates itself. I'm here because it happened. But I didn't do anything to make it happen apart from saying 'Yes'
-- Ringo Starr

#Saying Yes #Done

I play weird. I'm always just behind. We [drummers] only have so much room. We're not guitarists.
-- Ringo Starr

#Play #Rooms #Drummer

At the end of the day, I can end up just totally wacky, because I've made mountains out of molehills. With meditation, I can keep them as molehills.
-- Ringo Starr

#Practice #Meditation #Mountain

In 1989 I sort of got back into the music business and one of the reasons I got back in is [that] I put the first All Stars band together. It's actually progressed from that every other year, or every two years, I've put that together...more and more realizing that's what I do.
-- Ringo Starr

#Stars #Years #Two

I like playing with a live band and I've got my act and we're fine.
-- Ringo Starr

#Band #Fine

I hate click tracks. A lot of people I know like to use click tracks. Like my son is perfect on the click tracks. It makes me to edgy.
-- Ringo Starr

#Hate #Son #People

I made all my mistakes playing with people.
-- Ringo Starr

#Mistake #People #Made

The business is so driven by money, everyone's trying to get it right.
-- Ringo Starr

#Trying #Driven

I know when I feel good when I play. There's a closeness with musicians you only get from playing live, even in the studio it's still playing live. For me, it's what expands my soul.
-- Ringo Starr

#Play #Feel Good #Soul

I used to wear different rings when I first got called Ringo in about 19, about, umm, '59 I got called Ringo.
-- Ringo Starr

#Different #Firsts #Used

A lot of the players I'm with, thank God, we're all still vertical. We've lost so many great players through the years, and we're still standing, as Elton John says.
-- Ringo Starr

#Player #Years #Thank God

I'm quite honored by it. They [people] tell me that , 'If it hadn't of been for you, I wouldn't have played drums.' Hey, don't blame me, I was just up there doing my stuff. So no, I never take it as any real pressure.
-- Ringo Starr

#Real #People #Hey

From 13, I wanted to play drums. I wanted to play with good people and I'm still doing it. I still love it so that's why I do it.
-- Ringo Starr

#Play #People #Wanted

John had Julian and I had Zak so we'd try to do the fatherly things. We'd try to do manly things too; we'd go to the pub and bring Maureen and Cynthia a Babycham or something- a real Liverpool attitude
-- Ringo Starr

#Attitude #Real #Trying

I don't collect any memorabilia. I wish I'd have kept everything I had. But who knew you had to keep it. Just gave it away. And we lost so much and we didn't look after a lot of it.
-- Ringo Starr

#Wish #Looks #Lost

You're like the devil with horns in your head, the only way I'll get you is to get you in bed.
-- Ringo Starr

#Evil #Way #Bed

I mean, women are very important to me. I don't know, they just drive me crazy.
-- Ringo Starr

#Crazy #Mean #Important

For me, I want to get across the stage to the people. I want to point at you, thirty, forty rows back, and you know I'm pointing at you, and we're having a laugh and getting it together.
-- Ringo Starr

#Laughing #People #Together

I used to wish I could write songs like the others - and I've tried but I just can't. I get the words all right, but whenever I think of a tune and sing it to the others they always say 'Yeah, it always sounds like such a thing' and when they point it out I see what they mean. But I did get a part credit as a composer on one - it was called What Goes On.
-- Ringo Starr

#Song #Writing #Mean

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

#Band #Broke Up #Reason

Believe me, I wish this song was yours instead of mine.
-- Ringo Starr

#Song #Honesty #Believe

You either kiss the future or the past goodbye.
-- Ringo Starr

#Inspirational #Goodbye #Kissing

I'm the greatest in this world.
-- Ringo Starr

#World #This World #Egotism

They paint you red before they sacrifice you. It's a different religion from ours - I think.
-- Ringo Starr

#Sacrifice #Thinking #Religion

I feel as though that was someone else playing. I was possessed!
-- Ringo Starr

#Feels

I've said this over and over again, but I love being in a band.
-- Ringo Starr

#Love Is #Band #Said

Drumming is my middle name.
-- Ringo Starr

#Names #Drumming #Middle

I don't talk about myself in the third person, and I laugh at people who do.
-- Ringo Starr

#Laughing #People #Third Person

I am a big Beatles fan. And, you know, unbeknownst to anyone, I used to be one. But I have no problems of putting titles and lines from other songs in my songs, because they're great lines and great titles.
-- Ringo Starr

#Song #Fans #Lines

Wake up meat head, don't pretend that you are dead.
-- Ringo Starr

#Friendship #Meat #Wake Up

I was the new boy. It was like joining a new class at school where everybody knows everybody else but me.
-- Ringo Starr

#School #Boys #Class

You got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues...And you know it don't come easy.
-- Ringo Starr

#Pay #Want #Easy

That's when we decided to stop in '66. Everyone thought we toured for years, you know, but we didn't. I joined in '62, and we'd finished touring in '66 to go into the studio where we could hear each other... and create any fantasy that came out of anybody's brain.
-- Ringo Starr

#Years #Brain #Fantasy

I've never been able to sit round on my own and play drums, practice in the back room, never been able to. I've always played with other musicians. It's how I play, there's no joy for me in playing on my own, bashing away. I need a bass, a piano, guitar, whatever, and then I can play.
-- Ringo Starr

#Guitar #Practice #Play

The White Album is important to me for different reasons. One - I had left the band on the White Album.
-- Ringo Starr

#White #Important #Band

I mean, I was born the day war broke out, but I don't remember all the bombs though they did actually break up Liverpool, you know. I remember when I was a little older, there was big gaps in all the streets where houses used to be. We used to play over them.
-- Ringo Starr

#Break Up #War #Mean

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.
-- Ringo Starr

#Play #Two #Years

When they come here, the English make a choice: New York or L.A. L.A. suited me better, I just feel comfortable here.
-- Ringo Starr

#New York #Choices #Feels

People in Liverpool don't move very far, you know.
-- Ringo Starr

#Moving #People

And in a marriage you can't TRY and be married. You're married or you're not married... as far as I'm concerned.
-- Ringo Starr

#Trying #Married #Concerned

If you made a record, I'd probably pick out tracks that I like and download that. That's just how it is.
-- Ringo Starr

#Track #Records #Made

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

#Musical #Looks #May

America: It's like Britain, only with buttons.
-- Ringo Starr

#Funny #America #Buttons

I feel the older I get, the more I'm learning to handle life. Being on this quest for a long time, it's all about finding yourself.
-- Ringo Starr

#Long #Finding Yourself #Quests

I want to deal with what's in front of me now to the best of my abilities, and sometimes that's not very good. But a lot of the days it is really great.
-- Ringo Starr

#Want #Sometimes #Very Good

Being in The Beatles was a short, incredible period of my life. I had 22 years leading up to it, and it was all over eight years later.
-- Ringo Starr

#Years #Eight #Incredibles

Roy Orbison was the only act that The Beatles didn't want to follow.
-- Ringo Starr

#Want

First and foremost I am a drummer. After that, I'm other things... But I didn't play drums to make money.
-- Ringo Starr

#Play #Firsts #Making Money

Peace and love, peace and love!
-- Ringo Starr

#Peace #And Love #Peace And Love

I'd like to end up sort ofunforgettable.
-- Ringo Starr

#Ends

I'm warning you with peace and love I have too much to do. So no more fan mail. Thank you, thank you. And no objects to be signed, nothing. Peace and love, peace and love.
-- Ringo Starr

#Music #Fans #Warning

This was the point of our lives when we found pills, uppers. That's the only way we could continue playing for so long. They were called Preludin, and you could buy them over the counter. We never thought we were doing anything wrong, but we'd get really wired and go on for days. So with beer and Preludin, that's how we survived.
-- Ringo Starr

#Beer #Long #Drug

F irst and foremost I am a drummer. After that, I'm other things. ...But I didn't play drums to make money. I played drums because I loved them. ...My soul is that of a drummer....It came to where I had to make a decision -- I was going to be a drummer. Everything else goes now. I play drums. It was a conscious moment in my life when I said the rest of things were getting in the way. I didn't do it to be come rich and famous, I did it because it was the love of my life.
-- Ringo Starr

#Play #Love Of My Life #Decision

We'd get in the car and i'd look over at John and say 'Christ. Look at you. You're a bloody phenomenon!' and just laugh because it was only him.
-- Ringo Starr

#Laughing #Car #Looks

I met The Beatles while we were playing in Germany. We'd seen them in Liverpool, but they were a nothing little band then, just putting it together. In fact, they weren't really a band at all.
-- Ringo Starr

#Together #Littles #Facts

I'm not the creative one. I know that. If Rory Storm hadn't come along... and then The Beatles... I would have continued running around in teddyboy gangs. Today, well... I'd probably be a laborer. I'm glad I'm not, of course. It'll be nice to be part of history... some sort of history anyway. What I'd like to be is in school history books and be read by kids.
-- Ringo Starr

#Running #Nice #Book

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

#People #Looks #Look At Me

There's a woman in the United States who predicted the plane we were traveling on would crash. Now, a lot of people would like to think we were scared into saying a prayer. What we did actually--we drank.
-- Ringo Starr

#Prayer #Thinking #People

Ringo: 'I do get emotional when I think back about those times. My make-up is emotional. I'm an emotional human being. I'm very sensitive and it took me till I was forty-eight to realize that was the problem! We were honest with each other and we were honest about the music. The music was positive. It was positive in love. They did write - we all wrote - about other things, but the basic Beatles message was Love.
-- Ringo Starr

#Writing #Emotional #Thinking

I think the most exciting thing is that you expect people our age to know the music, but actually a lot of kids know the music, and if anything is left, we have left really good music, and that's the important part, not the mop-tops or whatever.
-- Ringo Starr

#Kids #Thinking #People

I don't like talking. It's how I'm built. Some people gab all day and some play it smogo. I don't mind talking or smiling, it's just I don't do it very much. I haven't got a smiling face or a talking mouth.
-- Ringo Starr

#Play #Talking #People

I'm always good for starting a bit of a tune and the first verse, but after that I just can never go anywhere. It takes me years, that's why I'm so slow.
-- Ringo Starr

#Years #Firsts #Tunes

It all comes down to who you crucify, you either kiss the past or future good-bye.
-- Ringo Starr

#Goodbye #Kissing #Past

Last night I had a peace dream...
-- Ringo Starr

#Dream #Night #Lasts

Ringo: 'I had no schooling before I joined The Beatles and no schooling after The Beatles. Life is a great education.
-- Ringo Starr

#Life Is #Great Education #Ringo

My soul is that of a drummer.... I didn't do it to become rich and famous. I did it because it was the love of my life.
-- Ringo Starr

#Love Of My Life #Soul #Rich

So this is America. They must be out of their minds.
-- Ringo Starr

#America #Mind

For me, God is in my life. I don't hide from that... I think the search has been on since the '60s.
-- Ringo Starr

#Thinking

No, no, no, I don't snort no more, I'm tired of waking up on the floor. No thank you please, it only makes me sneeze, then it makes it hard to find the door.
-- Ringo Starr

#Tired #Doors #Alcohol