The Concert for Bangladesh was just a moral stance.
— George Harrison
I wouldn't say that my songs are autobiographical.
In the big picture, it doesn't really matter if we never made a record, or we never sang a song. That isn't important.
People say I'm the Beatle who changed the most, but to me, that's what life's about.
I think of myself as a jungle musician because of my lack of formal training.
Obviously we were having an effect, because all these people were clamouring to meet us. Like Muhammad Ali, for instance.
Because we were all from Liverpool, we favored people who were street people.
Rap bores me, and all the glamour rock groups like Bon Jovi just amuse me. They obviously have a place, but they all sound like they use the same guitar player to me.
The best slide solo I ever played was on... what's her name? That girl singer who used to be with that all-girl band? ... Belinda Carlisle of the Go-Go's! That's who it was. I played on one of her albums.
Most people think when the world gets itself together, we'll all be okay. I don't see that situation arriving. I think one by one, we all free ourselves from the chains we have chained ourselves to. But I don't think that suddenly some magic happens and the whole lot of us will all be liberated in one throw.
In the end, you're trying to find God. That's the result of not being satisfied. And it doesn't matter how much money, or property, or whatever you've got, unless you're happy in your heart, then that's it. And unfortunately, you can never gain perfect happiness unless you've got that state of consciousness that enables that.
I'm really quite simple. I plant flowers and watch them grow... I stay at home and watch the river flow.
I just write a song, and it just comes out however it wants to. And some of them are catchy songs like 'Here Comes The Sun,' and some of them aren't, you know.
I'm not a fan of that sort of punky, heavy, tinny stuff. I like a nice melody.
I think it was John who really urged me to play sitar on 'Norwegian Wood,' which was the first time we used it. Now, Paul has just asked me recently whether I'd written any more of those 'Indian type of tunes.' He suddenly likes them now. But at the time, he wouldn't play on them.
I play a little guitar, write a few tunes, make a few movies, but none of that's really me. The real me is something else.
People are simply screwing up when they go out and buy beefsteak, which is killing them with cancer and heart troubles. The stuff costs a fortune, too. You could feed a thousand people with lentil soup for the cost of half a dozen filets.
The adulation or the superstardom is something I could leave out quite happily.
Some of the best songs that I know are the ones I haven't written yet, and it doesn't even matter if I don't ever write them, because it's only small potatoes compared with the big picture.
At the point we finished 'Abbey Road,' the game was up. We all accepted that.
I've always played around in my own mind with what a Wilburys tour could be. Would each person do a solo set and then do Wilburys at the end, or would we all go on right from beginning to end and make everything Wilburys? It's an intriguing thought.
Muhammad Ali was quite cute.
The fact that we're all here in these bodies means that we're not perfected.
What good are three Beatles without John?
I wanted to collaborate with someone, but it had to be someone I could work with and who wouldn't disrespect my past.
Down through the ages, there has always been the spiritual path. It's been passed on - it always will be - and if anybody ever wants it in any age, it's always there.
If I go to someplace like Switzerland, I find a lot of uptight people because they're living amongst so much beauty; there's no urgency in trying to find the beauty within themselves. If you're stuck in New York, you have to somehow look within yourself - otherwise, you'd go crackers.
They gave their money, and they gave their screams. But the Beatles kind of gave their nervous systems. They used us as an excuse to go mad, the world did, and then blamed it on us.
To tell the truth, I'd join a band with John Lennon any day, but I couldn't join a band with Paul McCartney, but it's nothing personal. It's just from a musical point of view.
I wasn't Lennon, or I wasn't McCartney. I was me. And the only reason I started to write songs was because I thought, 'Well, if they can write them, I can write them.'
If I write a tune and people think it's nice, then that's fine by me, but I hate having to compete and promote the thing. I really don't like promotion.
I just got so fed up with the bad vibes. I didn't care if it was the Beatles; I was getting out.
If we'd know we were going to be the Beatles, we'd have tried harder.
I'd rather be a musician than a rock star.
I'm the kind of person who would love to play whenever I felt like, with a band, and it might as well be the Holiday Inn in Nebraska - somewhere where no one knows you, and you're in a band situation just playing music.
At death, you're going to be needing some spiritual guidance and some kind of inner knowledge that extends beyond the boundaries of the physical world... it's what's inside that counts.
We got £25 a week in the early Sixties when we were first with Brian Epstein, when we played the clubs.
To the best of my knowledge, none of the Beatles can read music.
It was all part of being a Beatle, really: just getting lugged around and thrust into rooms full of press men taking pictures and asking questions.
If we were all perfected beings, we wouldn't be here in the physical world.
I never listen to the radio to keep up with current trends.
Of course, once you've been a Beatle, you're never really out of it. People always want to know what you're up to, and if you don't immediately tell 'em, that's when they start making stuff up.
I'll tell you one thing for sure: once you get to the point where you're actually doing things for truth's sake, then nobody can ever touch you again because you're harmonizing with a greater power.
Although I have guitars all around, and I pick them up occasionally and write a tune and make a record, I don't really see myself as a musician. It may seem a funny thing to say. It's just like, I write lyrics, and I make up songs, but I'm not a great lyricist or songwriter or producer. It's when you put all these things together - that makes me.
Everything else can wait, but the search for God cannot wait.
I don't think the Beatles were that good. I think they're fine, you know. Ringo's got the best backbeat I've ever heard... Paul is a fine bass player... but he's a bit overpowering at times.
Basically, I feel fortunate to have realized what the goal is in life. There's no point in dying having gone through your life without knowing who you are, what you are, or what the purpose of life is. And that's all it is.
If you want to be popular and famous, you can do it; it's dead easy if you have that ego desire. But most of my ego desires as far as being famous and successful were fulfilled a long time ago.
The Beatles exist apart from myself. 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.
It is better to be an outspoken atheist than a hypocrite.
