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"I met The Beatles while we were playing in Germany.
We'd seen them in Liverpool, but they were a nothing little
band then, just putting it together. In fact, they weren't
really a band at all."
"So we went in and we did the album in twelve hours...
because we did everything we'd been doing on the road for
the last year or so, you know."
About recording the Beatles' first album
"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'"
Question: "Do you date much?"
Ringo Starr: "What are you doing tonight?"
Question: "Were you worried about the oversized roughnecks
who tried to infiltrate the airport crowd on your arrival?"
Ringo Starr: "That was us!"
Question: "Sorry to interupt you while you are eating,
but what do you think you will be doing in five years time,
when all this is over?"
Ringo Starr: "Still eating."
"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."
Ringo in 1968 (on his place in history)
"He (Brian Epstein) changed our image only in making
us a bit smarter. They all (the other Beatles) changed my
image. I used to have my hair right back, like a teddy boy,
with a Tony Curtis cut and sideboards and suddenly it was,
'Shave them off and put your hair down,' which I did."
"People only look at me as a Beatle but my friends
look at me as a whole person. That's how life works, but
it's not bugging me anymore."
“So this is America. They must be out of their minds."
Ringo, in 1964, arriving in America for the first time
“I like Beethoven, especially the poems.”
Ringo, joking with reporters
Question: "Do you like topless bathing suits?"
Ringo Starr: "We've been wearing them for years."
“That was a great time. I was in my 20s, had lots
of energy. I have great memories of it.”
"America: It's like Britain, only with buttons."
"I felt I was more thrilled to meet him than he was to meet
me."
Ringo on meeting Elvis Presley
"Well I'm getting happier all the time, which is very
nice."
"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."
“Everything government touches turns to crap.”
"And I came back and it was great, 'cuz George had
set up all these flowers all over the studio saying welcome
home. So then we got it together again. I always felt it
was better on the White one for me. We were more like a band,
you know."
About returning to the band after temporarily
quitting (1968)
"And the White Album is important to me for different
reasons. One - I had left the band on the White Album."
Question: "What do you think you've contributed to
the music business?"
Ringo Starr: "Records."
"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."
"George (Martin) was the only person who took a chance
on us to make a record. Every other label turned us down."
"I'm not going to say anything because nobody believes
me when I do."
Ringo Starr, circa 1969 (concerning the rumors
of Paul McCartney's death)
"I'll say it again: 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. If you
could play, I'd play with you all night. But if I'm just
playing by myself, it gets
boring pretty quick."
"Brian (Epstein) was great because he said, 'You know,
I think it'd be a great idea if you don't drink and smoke
and swear at the audience while you're on stage' "
“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."
“I got involved with a lot of different medications,
and you can listen to my records go downhill as the amount
of medication went up."
"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 couldn't put my finger on one reason why we broke
up. It was time, and we were spreading out. They were spreading
out more than I was. I would've stayed with the band."
"I wouldn't like to be interviewed on a lot of records,
but this, I don't mind, because it's a beautiful record and
he was a beautiful man and I'm privileged to feel he was
my friend."
Ringo Starr referring to John Lennon's
'Plastic Ono Band' album on which Starr drummed on
"We will miss George for his sense of love, his sense
of music and his sense of laughter."
“No, I've got my band, and he's got his. It's never
going to happen. We're both doing other things now.”
Ringo Starr, 2005, when asked if he and Paul McCartney would ever tour together
"I just said to fans that I'm not signing anymore.
That what it was, it wasn't back off, I'm not a vicious man.
I don't sign anymore, people say sign this and I just say
no."
Ringo Starr on no longer signing stuff
for fans
"I'd like to end up sort of...unforgettable."
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