Ringo Starr Quotes

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.

When I'm ninety-five and it's 'This is Your Life' time, they'll still be referring to me as 'ex-Beatle' ... it does have it's advantages. It's still the best way to get a good table at a resturant.

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.

A lady that I know just came from Colombia. She laughed because I did not understand. She held out some marijuana uh-huh, said it was the finest in the land. I said, no-no-no-no, i dont smoke it no more. It only makes me fall on the floor.No thank you please, it only makes me sneeze, and then it makes it hard to find the door. A lady that i know just came from Morrocco, Spain. She laughed because i did not understand. She held out a ten-pound bag of cocaine, said it was the finest in the land. I said no-no-no-no, i don't *sniff* no more, it only makes me fall on the floor. No thank you please, it only makes me sneeze, and then it makes it hard to find the door.
A lady that i know just came from Tennesee. She laughed because i did not understand. She held out a jug of moonshine, uh-huh, said it was the finest in the land. I said no-no-no-no, i don't drink it no more, it only makes me fall on the floor. No thank you please, it only makes me sneeze, and then it makes it hard to find the door.

Ringo Starr's No-No Song

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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

I am, I definitely am. I'm really excited about that ...

I am truly grateful. I'm a grateful human being.

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.

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.

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

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

And 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've never broken a bone in my life, or in my body.

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

Fondest memory of being a Beatle: Having three brothers.

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

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

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.

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

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

I love the modern technology now.

I'd like to be in a man band, but with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr and Keith Richards. We'd have a rocky edge.

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.

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

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 ...

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.'

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

I have a trainer who comes three times a week and just listens to me moan ... and I keep fit and keep moving ... and I do watch what I eat. I am a vegetarian ... I can't eat crazy food. I'm highly allergic to onions and garlic and spices ... I've never had a pizza, never had a curry.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

I've never gone to the bedroom when I was starting out and practiced away.

The second side of Abbey Road is my favorite.

George was getting alot of independence for himself in those days. He was writing more, and wanted things to go his way - where, when we first started things basically went John and Paul's way. You know, 'cuz they were the writers.

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

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

You either kiss the future or the past goodbye.

Gaps can be very emotional. I mean, that's in my drumming. When I drum, you know, I don't need to drum all over the track. I play with the singer and I can back off.

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

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.

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.

They said do what you want, because if we don't like it, no-one will hear it.

I'm not going to say anything because nobody believes me when I do.

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

Peace and love, peace and love!

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.

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.

I'm the greatest in this world.

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

I'd like to end up sort of unforgettable.

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

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

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.

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

We thought we'd be really big in Liverpool.

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

I've never had any big ideas about being the solo.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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'

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

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.

I'm nervous ahead of every gig. I feel like running away three seconds before I'm due on stage. But I'm all right as soon as I get the mic in my hand.

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.

(Media question to Beatles during first U.S. tour 1964)
"How do you find America?"
"Turn left at Greenland.

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

I think I'm more prolific in the songwriting.

I've been asked to write my autobiography and really they only want 8 years (1962-1970), and I keep saying it would be five volumes before I even got into the band!

I like Beethoven, especially the poems.

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

Everything government touches turns to crap.

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.

I get on with kids and I feel that's because I am one.

I love being in a band. I love playing with other human beings. I've never practiced drums unless there was another human being in the room.