Ringo Starr Quotes

Everything government touches turns to crap.

Fondest memory of being a Beatle: Having three brothers.

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

I'm left handed and I'm playing a right handed kit... That's why everyone thought, 'Wow, he's a genius,' but all I was doing was trying to play backwards... It's one of those mad accidents, you can't learn it.

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

I learned to knit in hospital. They give you stuff to do to keep you busy because you're so ill.

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

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.

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.

You either kiss the future or the past goodbye.

If you could play, I'd play with you all night. But if I'm just playing by myself, it gets boring pretty quick.

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

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

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.

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

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

The trouble with leaving your feet on the ground is you never get to take your pants off.

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.

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

Drumming is my middle name.

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I'm not sleeping with all the women I appear with.

I like Beethoven, especially the poems.

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'

When I was thirteen I only wanted to be a drummer.

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

Peace and love, peace and love!

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.

The drummer's always going to be there. They're the floor of the whole deal and everyone can stand up on you.

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

We thought we'd be really big in Liverpool.

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.

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.

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

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

The kids are interested in the music of them. They're not interested in mop-tops and Beatle boots and crazy suits. It's all down to the music now - that's what they hear, and that's what they love.