Paul McCartney
I don't work at being ordinary.Collection: Work
My dad, bless him, was a musician. And his dad had thought that his music was rubbish.Collection: Dad
And I loved Fats Waller. I love his instrumental abilities, his vocal abilities and his sense of humor.Collection: Humor
I hate the idea of success robbing you of your private life.Collection: Success
The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.Collection: Death
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.Collection: Wedding
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.Collection: Dad
In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.Collection: Love
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.Collection: Dad
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!Collection: Car
Nothing pleases me more than to go into a room and come out with a piece of music.Collection: Music
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.Collection: Anger
It's time to end the cruel slaughter of whales and leave these magnificent creatures alone.Collection: Alone
None of us wanted to be the bass player. In our minds he was the fat guy who always played at the back.
If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.
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.
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.
Love is all you need.
Think globally, act locally.
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.
Why would I retire? Sit at home and watch TV? No thanks. I'd rather be out playing.
Somewhere down the line everyone must pay for their misdeeds.
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.'
Buy, buy, says the sign in the shop window; Why, why, says the junk in the yard.
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 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 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.
Microphones are just like people, if you shout at them, they get scared.
I don't ever try to make a serious social comment.
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.
But with writers, there's nothing wrong with melancholy. It's an important color in writing.
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 had this song called Helter Skelter, which is just a ridiculous song. So we did it like that, 'cuz I like noise.
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.
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.
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 don't take me seriously. If we get some giggles, I don't mind.
My dad was a particularly polite kind of guy, very courteous.
I'm not religious, but I'm very spiritual.
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 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've got to admit it's getting better. It's a little better all the time.
There are only four people who knew what the Beatles were about anyway.
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.
It's also not unusual for writers to look backward. Because that's your pool of resources.
I have not practiced how to be a singer without an instrument.
I can't deal with the press; I hate all those Beatles questions.
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.
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.
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.