Paul McCartney famous quotes

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

#Love #Life #Birthday

My dad was a particularly polite kind of guy, very courteous. So when we got on a bus, he would always encourage me and my younger brother to get up and offer our seat to an old lady. I grew up kind of liking that, thinking, y'know, that's a nice thing, that's a courtesy.
-- Paul McCartney

#Brother #Dad #Nice

There are only four people who knew what the Beatles were about anyway.
-- Paul McCartney

#People #Four

It's not unusual for writers to look backward. Because that's your pool of resources. If you were to write something now, I bet there's a pretty good chance you'd call on your teenage years, your experiences then, stuff you learned then.
-- Paul McCartney

#Teenage #Writing #Years

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

#Wall #Health #Animal

I'm not a great practiser at all. We were never great practisers. The Beatles would come together for about a day before we had a tour, to make sure the amp worked.
-- Paul McCartney

#Together

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

#Musical #Rooms #Pieces

I've got a few guitars that I like. The trouble with fame and riches is that you have more than one guitar.
-- Paul McCartney

#Guitar #Riches #Trouble

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

#Character #Men #Compassion

I am quite happy that the Beatles came and went. There is even a sort of glory in not having it go on forever. There is a complete body of work that went from A to Z and it is all pretty damn good stuff. The one thing I am particularly proud of is that nearly every single bit of it has some good message. I feel fortunate when I look back. Life is not easy, but I've been very lucky - and I'm touching wood as I say that.
-- Paul McCartney

#Forever #Touching #Looks

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

#Thinking #People #Meditation

I think that selling rights is a bad move commercially, not just morally. It cheapens the songs. When people come to my concerts, they often hold up candles when we do "Let It Be." I don't think they'd do that anymore if the song suddenly became part of an Oldsmobile ad.
-- Paul McCartney

#Song #Moving #Thinking

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Life #Motivation #Business

My stepmother sold my birth certificate and someone asked why I didn't buy it back. I don't know, really. I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It was mine. It cost me nothing and suddenly I had to buy it back.
-- Paul McCartney

#Cost #Birth #Certificates

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Jobs #Kids #Ideas

It's a powerful thing hearing your friend on a very beautiful song.
-- Paul McCartney

#Beautiful #Song #Powerful

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Marijuana #Jail #People

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Memories #Writing #Artist

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

#Fighting #Life Is #Working It

In some ways we live in a world where things appear to be very logical, very rational, and mechanical aspects of our world are rather scientific and rather straightforward.
-- Paul McCartney

#Our World #Way #Logical

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

#Song #Cuz #Noise

As far as art's concerned, I probably like modern art more than traditional art.
-- Paul McCartney

#Art #Modern #Modern Art

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Guitar #Fool #Firsts

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Jobs #Trying #Want

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.'
-- Paul McCartney

#Funny #Money #Writing

Animation is not just for children - it's also for adults who take drugs.
-- Paul McCartney

#Children #Drug #Adults

You're always looking at last year, or 10 years ago, or your school days, or your teenage years, your formative years. Because that's exactly what they are, they're your formative years.
-- Paul McCartney

#Teenage #School #Years

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

#Islands #Giving #Meditation

It's nice to have a little bit of art to fall back on.
-- Paul McCartney

#Art #Nice #Fall

Being in the audience actually looks like quite a lot of fun.
-- Paul McCartney

#Fun #Looks #Audience

Having a beard is natural. When you think about it, shaving it off is quite weird.
-- Paul McCartney

#Thinking #Beard #Shaving

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

#Yards #Junk #Window

I realized marvelling at nature was a deep pleasure of mine.
-- Paul McCartney

#Pleasure #I Realized

I don't work at being ordinary.
-- Paul McCartney

#Writing #Ordinary #Songwriting

If you're using your imagination, you tend to look into the past for ideas.
-- Paul McCartney

#Past #Ideas #Imagination

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

#Years #People #Way

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!
-- Paul McCartney

#Mean #Thinking #Car

I have not practiced how to be a singer without an instrument.
-- Paul McCartney

#Singers #Instruments

Putting two songs together, I've always loved that trick when it works.
-- Paul McCartney

#Song #Two #Together

Take these broken wings and learn to fly.
-- Paul McCartney

#Wings #Broken #Learn To Fly

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Teamwork #Real #Optimistic

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Mother #Moving #Nurse

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Thinking #Vegetarianism #Important

Out of all those millions and millions of planets floating around there in space, this is our planet, this is our little one, so we just got to be aware of it and take care of it.
-- Paul McCartney

#Space #Care #Littles

Paul's last words to Linda: "You're up on your beautiful Appaloosa stallion. It's a fine spring day. We're riding through the woods. The bluebells are all out, and the sky is clear-blue".
-- Paul McCartney

#Beautiful #Spring #Blue

It's like if you're an astronaut and you've been to the moon, what do you want to do with the rest of your life?
-- Paul McCartney

#Moon #Want #Astronaut

It's also not unusual for writers to look backward. Because that's your pool of resources.
-- Paul McCartney

#Looks #Pool #Unusual

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

#Music #Book #Heart

the beatles were always a great band. nothing more nothing less
-- Paul McCartney

#Band

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

#Nice #Vegetables #Cooking

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Rumor #Alive #Lasts

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

#Home #Tvs #Watches

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Funny #War #Mean

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Song #Sex #Lasts

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Cocky #Done #Firsts

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

#Redneck #Hospitality #Beats

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Song #Writing #Ideas

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Song #Rocks #Long

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

#Children #Book #Study

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

#Drinking #Drunk #Adventurous

The medical argument for animal testing doesn't stand up. Even if it did, I don't think we should kill other species. We think we're so much better; I'm not sure we are. I tell people, We've beaten into submission every animal on the face of the Earth, so we are the clear winners of whatever battle is going on between the species. Couldn't we be generous? I really do think it's time to get nice. No need to keep beating up on them. I think we've got to show that we're kind.
-- Paul McCartney

#Nice #Animal #Thinking

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!
-- Paul McCartney

#Dad #Home #Skeletons

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

#Brian #Fifth

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
-- Paul McCartney

#Future #Rain #Sky

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Choices #Empowering #Important

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Music #Song #Guitar

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

#Animal #Eating Meat #Want

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

#Great Day #Sake #Goodness

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

#Song #Writing #Say Anything

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

#Facts #Use #Remedy

The willow turns his back on inclement weather. And if he can do it, we can do it.
-- Paul McCartney

#Inspirational #Weather #Turns

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Anger #Finding The One #Guitar

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Leader #Looks #Look Up

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

#Enough #Wells

It's like there was me, then the Beatles phase, and now I'm me again.
-- Paul McCartney

#Phases

The last time I twerked I was with @katyperry. She was rather good at it!
-- Paul McCartney

#Lasts #Last Time

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Dog #Pain #Cat

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Beach #Children #War

Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs
-- Paul McCartney

#Song #Silly #People

Painting is a magical process that I like, where you conjure something out of nothing; you get a little idea that leads you through ... You can go into a trance while you're doing it, so it's a nice contrast to real life.
-- Paul McCartney

#Nice #Real #Ideas

Home in her apartment she'd dwell 'til the man from her dreams comes to break the spell.
-- Paul McCartney

#Dream #Sadness #Home

Going to do it to you sweet banana, like it's never been done, and we'll get high, high, high, in the mid-day sun.
-- Paul McCartney

#Sweet #Alcohol #Drug

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

#Guitar #Drummer #Ringo

Tomorrow may rain, so I'll follow the sun
-- Paul McCartney

#Rain #Sun #May

There was one moment where they were riding their little ponies in Scotland, and Stella said to me: 'Dad! You're Paul McCartney, aren't you?' 'Yes darling, but I'm Daddy really'.
-- Paul McCartney

#Dad #Scotland #Interesting

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.
-- Paul McCartney

#Ideas #Years #Next

Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I'm sixty-four?
-- Paul McCartney

#Birthday #Needs #Four