George Harrison Quotes

"I wanted to be successful, not famous."
"I'd rather be a musician than a rockstar."
"Having played with other musicians, I don't even think The Beatles were that good."
"The first time I heard "Love Me Do" on the radio, I went shivery all over - I couldn't believe it!"
"America has everything, why should they want us."

George, 1964, as the Beatles go to conquer America
"The Beatles saved the world from boredom."
"The nicest thing is to open the newspapers and not to find yourself in them."
"The world used us as an excuse to go mad."
"They gave their money and they gave their screams, but the Beatles kind of gave their nervous systems."
George Harrison in 1995 on Beatlemania.
"We laughed a lot. That's one thing we forgot about for a few years - laughing. When we went through all the lawsuits, it looked as if everything was bleak, but when I think back to before that, I remember we used to laugh all the time."
Reporter, during an early press conference: "What do you call that haircut?"
George Harrison: "Arthur"
"Rap music is just computerised crap. I listen to Top of the Pops and after three songs I feel like killing someone."
"In the end, this world will go under because of the stupidity of people."
“I believe I love my guitar more than the others love theirs. For and Paul, songwriting is pretty important and guitar playing is a means to an end. While they’re making up new tunes I can thoroughly enjoy myself just doodling around with a guitar for a whole evening. I’m fascinated by new sounds I can get from different instruments I try out. I’m not sure that makes me particularly musical. Just call me a guitar fanatic instead, and I’ll be satisfied.”
"While everybody else was going mad, we were actually the sanest people in the whole thing."
"I'll play what you want or I won't play at all."
George Harrison, to Paul McCartney during the recording of the Let It Be album
"The world is a very serious and, at times, very sad place - but at other times it is all such a joke."
Question: "What do you think of the criticism that you're not very good?"
George Harrison: "We're not."
"I've been the same all along. I talk when I feel like it and I shut up when I don't feel like talking."
Question: "Hi, you're not married?"
George Harrison: "No, I'm George."
"I'd like to think that all the old Beatle fans have grown up and they've got married and they've all got kids and they're all more responsible, but they still have a space in their hearts for us."
"It is an outrage that people can take other people's lives when they obviously haven't got their own lives in order."
"If everyone who had a gun just shot themselves, there wouldn't be a problem."
"The biggest break in my career was getting into the Beatles in 1962. The second biggest break since then is getting out of them."
"The Beatles exist apart from my Self. I am not really Beatle George. Beatle George is like a suit or shirt that I once wore on occasion and until the end of my life people may see that shirt and mistake it for me."
"I didn't like the look of Rory's drummer myself. He looked the nasty one, with his little grey streak of hair. But the nastier one turned out to be Ringo, the nicest of them all."

"We're trying to impress ourselves in a way. That's why we keep trying to do things better... we never get satisfied."
"They used us as an excuse to go mad and then blamed it on us. Gandhi says create and preserve the image of your choice. The image of my choice is not Beatle George - those who want that can go and see Wings. Why live in the past? Be here now."
“Sometimes Paul would make us do these really fruity songs. I mean, my god, Maxwell’s Silver Hammer was so fruity.”
"I think people who truly can live a life in music are telling the world, 'You can have my love, you can have my smiles. Forget the bad parts, you don't need them. Just take the music, the goodness, because it's the very best, and it's the part I give most willingly'"
"Hippies are so phoney and fake."
"I'll give up this sort of touring madness certainly, but music-everything is based on music. No, I'll never stop my music."
"I was quite responsible for stirring things up. I conspired to get Ringo in for good; I talked to Paul and John until they came round to the idea."
George on replacing drummer Pete Best with Ringo
"We weren't very good at telling Pete (Best) he had to go."
"Anyway, there is one thing I have learned and that is not to dress uncomfortably, in styles which hurt: winklepicker shoes that cripple your feet and tight pants that squash your balls. Indian clothes are better."
“All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece, but not too much.”
From Harrison's song "It's All Too Much"
"I can see the Beatles sticking together forever, really. We've been together a long time."
George Harrison in 1969
"We were the Spice Boys."
"My music, it doesn't matter if I did it 20 years ago or if I did it tomorrow. It doesn't go with trends. My trousers don't get wider and tighter every six months. My music just stays what it is, and that's the way I like it."
"Sometimes, you release an album and the record company just about ignores it, and so many people don't even know it's out. And I'm not about to jump up and down shouting, "Hey folks, look at me! I'm cool and groovy!" That's not what George Harrison is all about."
"When I did Bangladesh, I spent a couple of months, every day and night, on the telephone, trying to trick people into doing it and making a commitment. Nowadays, you phone somebody up, and it's an accepted part of life that every so often you give something to charity."
"Friends are all souls that we've known in other lives. We're drawn to each other. That's how I feel about friends. Even if I've only known them for a day, it doesn't matter. I'm not going to wait till I've known them two years, because anyway we have met somewhere before, you know."
"We had every freak in the world coming in there."
George Harrison about Apple Corps
"It's being here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there is one."
"As far as I'm concerned, there won't be a Beatles reunion as long as remains dead."
"The Beatles will exist without us."
"The Beatles will go on and on."