Top 55 Paul McCartney Quotes

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.

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.

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.’

Putting two songs together, I’ve always loved that trick when it works.

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

The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated.

I’ve got to admit it’s getting better. It’s a little better all the time.

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.

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.

I don’t ever try to make a serious social comment.

I’m not religious, but I’m very spiritual.

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

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.

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.

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.

Love is all you need.

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.

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!

I love the past. There are parts of the past I hate, of course.

Lyricists play with words.

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.

To keep the record straight, it wasn’t always John and Yoko. We’ve all accused one another of various business things; we tend to be pretty paranoid by now, as you can imagine. There’s a lot of money involved.

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

My dad, bless him, was a musician. And his dad had thought that his music was rubbish.

I don’t work at being ordinary.

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

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.

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

But you know, as a kid I would have thought of a vegetarian as a wimp.

I feel that if I said anything about John, I would have to sit here for five days and say it all. Or I don’t want to say anything.

Think globally, act locally.

My old school in Liverpool is now a performing-arts school, and I kind of teach there – I use the word lightly – but I go there and talk to students.

I don’t take me seriously. If we get some giggles, I don’t mind.

It’s time to end the cruel slaughter of whales and leave these magnificent creatures alone.

I’m always writing songs, and I’ve got a bunch that I want to record.

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.

I’m the worst on facts about me or facts about the Beatles.

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.

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.

Somewhere down the line everyone must pay for their misdeeds.

George Martin, he’s very good at a very sort of lush, sweet arrangement.

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

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.

I was still 15 when I met John Lennon at a village fete in Woolton, in Liverpool.

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 can take pot or leave it. I got busted in Japan for it. I was nine days without it and there wasn’t a hint of withdrawal, nothing.

Why would I retire? Sit at home and watch TV? No thanks. I’d rather be out playing.

Someone like John would want to end the Beatle period and start the Yoko period. He wouldn’t like either to interfere with the other.

But with writers, there’s nothing wrong with melancholy. It’s an important color in writing.

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

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.

It’s also not unusual for writers to look backward. Because that’s your pool of resources.

I can’t deal with the press; I hate all those Beatles questions.

My dad was a particularly polite kind of guy, very courteous.