Sir Paul McCartney, born on June 18, 1942, in Liverpool, England, is one of the most influential musicians of all time. As a founding member of The Beatles, McCartney’s songwriting prowess and melodic genius helped revolutionize popular music. From early hits like “Love Me Do” to iconic albums like “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” his contributions to the band’s catalog are immeasurable. After The Beatles disbanded, McCartney embarked on a highly successful solo career, producing timeless classics such as “Maybe I’m Amazed” and “Live and Let Die.” Additionally, his work with the band Wings yielded numerous chart-topping singles and albums. McCartney’s musical versatility spans rock, pop, classical, and experimental genres, showcasing his remarkable talent and innovation. With over six decades in the industry, McCartney’s impact on music and culture is unparalleled, earning him countless awards, including multiple Grammys and knighthood. He remains a beloved and respected figure in the world of music, inspiring generations of artists.
Paul McCartney Quotes
1. “In the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”
— Paul McCartney
2. “There will be an answer. Let it be.”
— Paul McCartney
3. “Let it be.”
— Paul McCartney
4. “If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be a vegetarian.”
— Paul McCartney
5. “Think globally, act locally.”
— Paul McCartney
6. “Take these broken wings and learn to fly.”
— Paul McCartney
7. “And when the night is cloudy There is still a light that shines on me Shine on until tomorrow, let it Be…”
— Paul McCartney
8. “Tomorrow may rain, so I’ll follow the sun.”
— Paul McCartney
9. “I’ve got to admit it’s getting better. It’s a little better all the time.”
— Paul McCartney
10. “You can judge a man’s true character by the way he treats his fellow animals.”
— Paul McCartney
11. “Will you still need me, will you still feed me, when I’m sixty-four?”
— Paul McCartney
12. “We live in hope of deliverance from the darkness that surrounds us.”
— Paul McCartney
13. “I’m not religious, but I’m very spiritual.”
— Paul McCartney
14. “For you know that it’s a fool who plays it cool, by making his world a little colder.”
— Paul McCartney
15. “If this ever changing world in which we live in makes you give in and cry, say live and let die.”
— Paul McCartney
16. “There must be a better way to make the things we want, a way that doesn’t spoil the sky, or the rain or the land.”
— Paul McCartney
17. “Close your eyes and I’ll kiss you, Tomorrow I’ll miss you.”
— Paul McCartney
18. “There is good and bad in everyone.”
— Paul McCartney
19. “All the lonely people, where do they all come from?”
— Paul McCartney
20. “What’s wrong with sentimental? Sentimental means you like stuff.”
— Paul McCartney
21. “When you’re wide awake say it for goodness sake, it’s gonna be a great day.”
— Paul McCartney
22. “People would say to me, “Hey man, you look just like Paul McCartney”, and I’d say: “I wish I had his money!””
— Paul McCartney
23. “Out of all those millions and millions of planets floating around there in space, this is our planet, this is our little one, so we just got to be aware of it and take care of it.”
— Paul McCartney
24. “Late at night when the wind is still I’ll come flying through your door, And you’ll know what love is for. I am a bluebird, I’m a bluebird…”
— Paul McCartney
25. “I don’t work at being ordinary.”
— Paul McCartney
26. “When we were kids growing up in Liverpool, all we ever wanted to be was Elvis Presley.”
— Paul McCartney
27. “Somewhere down the line everyone must pay for their misdeeds.”
— Paul McCartney
28. “I can’t manage without homeopathy. In fact, I never go anywhere without homeopathic remedies. I often make use of them.”
— Paul McCartney
29. “Ebony and ivory live together in perfect harmony, side by side on my keyboard piano, oh Lord, why don’t we?”
— Paul McCartney
30. “Every love song I write is for Linda.”
— Paul McCartney
31. “Fight for the right to live in freedom!”
— Paul McCartney
32. “Most people don’t know that I invented the selfie.”
— Paul McCartney
33. “To this day, if I ever meet grownups who play ukulele, I love ’em.”
— Paul McCartney
34. “The best thing I ever saw was a man who loved his wife.”
— Paul McCartney
35. “Bend like the willow, winds gonna blow you hard and cold tonight. Life as it happens, nobody warns you, willow hold on tight.”
— Paul McCartney
36. “Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs.”
— Paul McCartney
37. “There are two things John and I always do when we’re going to sit down and write a song. First of all we sit down. Then we think about writing a song.”
— Paul McCartney
38. “The willow turns his back on inclement weather. And if he can do it, we can do it.”
— Paul McCartney
39. “Love doesn’t come in a minute, sometimes it doesn’t come at all.”
— Paul McCartney
40. “Live a little be a gypsy, get around. Get your feet up off the ground, live a little, get around.”
— Paul McCartney
41. “If I ever get out of here, thought of giving it all away to a registered charity.”
— Paul McCartney
42. “If there were no Carl Perkins, there would be no Beatles.”
— Paul McCartney
43. “I am alive and well and unconcerned about the rumors of my death. But if I were dead, I would be the last to know.”
— Paul McCartney
44. “Long live all us crazy soldiers Who were born under calico skies May we never be called to handle All the weapons of war we despise.”
— Paul McCartney
45. “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds actually wasn’t meant to say LSD It was a drawing that John’s son brought home from school Lucy was a kid in his school.”
— Paul McCartney
46. “I’m not into, Hey, what’s your sign? or any of that. But I don’t know how I got here, and I don’t know how I write songs. I don’t know why I breathe.”
— Paul McCartney
47. “Give Ireland back to the Irish, don’t make them have to take it away.”
— Paul McCartney
48. “Transcendental Meditation gives me an island of calm in the midst of so much turbulence.”
— Paul McCartney
49. “Rock it man. I know you will.”
— Paul McCartney
50. “Songs have some kind of structure that connects with people’s hearts.”
— Paul McCartney
51. “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.’”
— Paul McCartney
52. “I still believe that love is all you need. I don’t know a better message than that.”
— Paul McCartney
53. “When you were young, and your heart, was an open book. You used to say, live and let live.”
— Paul McCartney
54. “Sadness isn’t sadness. It’s happiness in a black jacket. Tears are not tears. They’re balls of laughter dipped in salt. Death is not death. It’s life that’s jumped off a tall cliff.”
— Paul McCartney
55. “Everybody’s talking about the President, we all chipped in for a bag of cement.”
— Paul McCartney
56. “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.”
— Paul McCartney
57. “If you love your life, everybody will love you too.”
— Paul McCartney
58. “If anyone wants to save the planet, all they have to do is just stop eating meat.”
— Paul McCartney
59. “Jet, I can almost remember their funny faces.”
— Paul McCartney
60. “It’s nice to have a little bit of art to fall back on.”
— Paul McCartney
61. “My message is a peaceful one and I hope that the idea will spread.”
— Paul McCartney
62. “In Liverpool we’d only done one-hour sessions. In Hamburg we had to play for eight hours. We played very loud, bang, bang, all the time. The Germans loved it.”
— Paul McCartney
63. “I think the French girls are fabulous.”
— Paul McCartney
64. “But with writers, there’s nothing wrong with melancholy. It’s an important color in writing.”
— Paul McCartney
65. “I don’t ever try to make a serious social comment.”
— Paul McCartney
66. “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.”
— Paul McCartney
67. “You guys ready to do this?”
— Paul McCartney
68. “I am a vegetarian because I realized that even little chickens suffer pain and fear, experience a range of feelings and emotions, and are as intelligent as mammals, including dogs, cats, and even some primates.”
— Paul McCartney
69. “Love Me Do, the first song we recorded, John was supposed to sing the lead, but they changed their minds and asked me to sing lead because they wanted John to play harmonica.”
— Paul McCartney
70. “The ring at the end of my nose makes me look rather pretty.”
— Paul McCartney
71. “It’s like if you’re an astronaut and you’ve been to the moon, what do you want to do with the rest of your life?”
— Paul McCartney
72. “When two great saints meet, it’s a humbling experience.”
— Paul McCartney
73. “I go back so far I’m in front of me.”
— Paul McCartney
74. “I do like Eddie Van Halen as a player. He gets it right quite often.”
— Paul McCartney
75. “You’re always looking at last year, or 10 years ago, or your school days, or your teenage years, your formative years. Because that’s exactly what they are, they’re your formative years.”
— Paul McCartney
76. “When I see bacon, I see a pig, I see a little friend, and that’s why I can’t eat it. Simple as that.”
— Paul McCartney
77. “None of us wanted to be the bass player. In our minds he was the fat guy who always played at the back.”
— Paul McCartney
78. “I thought the only lonely place was on the moon.”
— Paul McCartney
79. “Paul’s last words to Linda: “You’re up on your? beautiful Appaloosa stallion. It’s a fine spring day. We’re riding through the woods. The bluebells are all out, and the sky is clear-blue”.”
— Paul McCartney
80. “It’s time to end the cruel slaughter of whales and leave these magnificent creatures alone.”
— Paul McCartney
81. “And what’s the point of changing when I’m happy as I am?”
— Paul McCartney
82. “Buy, buy, says the sign in the shop window; Why, why, says the junk in the yard.”
— Paul McCartney
83. “My stepmother sold my birth certificate and someone asked why I didn’t buy it back. I don’t know, really. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. It was mine. It cost me nothing and suddenly I had to buy it back.”
— Paul McCartney
84. “I used to go round to Aunt Mimi’s house and John would be at the typewriter, which was fairly unusual in Liverpool. None of my mates even knew what a typewriter was. Well they knew what it was but they didn’t hae one. Nobody had one.”
— Paul McCartney
85. “I’m only 49 years old. I’m still in the middle of this whole thing. I don’t feel like it’s finished at all. I’m still planning to write better songs.”
— Paul McCartney
86. “I feel like the sixties is about to happen. It feels like a period in the future to me, rather than a period in the past.”
— Paul McCartney
87. “I took my brains out and stretched them on the rack, now I’m not too sure I’m gonna get them back.”
— Paul McCartney
88. “I love the past. There are parts of the past I hate, of course.”
— Paul McCartney
89. “And Jet, I thought the Major was a lady suffragette.”
— Paul McCartney
90. “If I were dead, I would be the last to know.”
— Paul McCartney
91. “There’s nothing as glamorous to me as a record store.”
— Paul McCartney
92. “By the time we made “Abbey Road”, John and I were openly critical of each other’s music, and I felt John wasn’t much interested in performing anything he hadn’t written himself.”
— Paul McCartney
93. “Every time I felt low, I just put on an Elvis record and I’d feel great, beautiful.”
— Paul McCartney
94. “My brother’s researched our early family history. He found a letter from a fella who said he used to be in love with my mum.”
— Paul McCartney
95. “So, if I’m cooking, I’ll be steaming vegetables, making some nice salad, that kind of stuff.”
— Paul McCartney
96. “Microphones are just like people, if you shout at them, they get scared.”
— Paul McCartney
97. “That’s not really important what religion people are attached to, because by the same argument I have a lot of Christian friends and Moslem friends. It’s just happened that I do have a lot of relatives and friends who are Jewish.”
— Paul McCartney
98. “Music is like a psychiatrist. You can tell your guitar things that you can’t tell people. And it will answer you with things people can’t tell you.”
— Paul McCartney
99. “I’d like to be able to go on holiday and not to have to hold my belly in for two whole weeks.”
— Paul McCartney
100. “There are only four people who knew what the Beatles were about anyway.”
— Paul McCartney
101. “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.”
— Paul McCartney
102. “The music publishing I own is fabulous recording.”
— Paul McCartney
103. “I was impossible. I don’t know how anyone could have lived with me. For the first time in my life, I was on the scrap heap, an unemployed worker.”
— Paul McCartney
104. “I don’t think of myself as a legend. I just love what I do. I love playing with my band, I love going to beautiful places and give people good music. I love what I do, I’m very lucky man.”
— Paul McCartney
105. “I don’t care too much for money, money can’t buy me love.”
— Paul McCartney
106. “I think the idea of getting out of a traffic jam and getting out of work each week and going and doing all this stuff would be really exhausting.”
— Paul McCartney
107. “I didn’t earn that much in record royalties. You’ve only got to look at my sales in 1980 to figure that one out.”
— Paul McCartney
108. “Alas, it looks like those unsubstantiated rumours about me are about to come true after all this time…”
— Paul McCartney
109. “This was one of the best things about Lennon and McCartney, the competitive element within the team. It was great. But hard to live with.”
— Paul McCartney
110. “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.”
— Paul McCartney
111. “I believe that in the future meditation could be as commonplace in schools and society as eco-awareness is now. It interests me that an ancient cure may be the solution to a modern problem.”
— Paul McCartney
112. “It was Elvis who really got me hooked on beat music. When I heard ‘Heartbreak Hotel’ I thought, this is it.”
— Paul McCartney
113. “The Stones also still have a huge following. Mick Jagger leaps around like a crazy dude. And Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood and Charlie Watts are playing great too.”
— Paul McCartney
114. “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.”
— Paul McCartney
115. “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.”
— Paul McCartney
116. “Sometimes you write a song in a certain era and it’s got a certain kind of significance.”
— Paul McCartney
117. “I think a domestic situation can change you and your attitudes. I suppose if you did get a bit content, then you might not write savage lyrics.”
— Paul McCartney
118. “Personally, I think you can put any interpretation you want on anything, but when someone suggests that Can’t Buy Me Love is about a prostitute, I draw the line. That’s going too far.”
— Paul McCartney
119. “Criticism didn’t really stop us and it shouldn’t ever stop anyone, because critics are only the people who can’t get a record deal themselves.”
— Paul McCartney
120. “I’m always writing songs, and I’ve got a bunch that I want to record.”
— Paul McCartney
121. “It’s like a lot of kids; when you tell them someone’s died, they laugh.”
— Paul McCartney
122. “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.”
— Paul McCartney
123. “A lot of artists use memories. A lot of prose writers, a lot of poets, a lot of songwriters, refer back to something. Generally it’s all you’ve got, unless you’re brilliant and can write totally in the now.”
— Paul McCartney
124. “I had this song called Helter Skelter, which is just a ridiculous song. So we did it like that, ’cuz I like noise.”
— Paul McCartney
125. “I got my first guitar when I was 15, and I just used to fool about with it, more or less, as time went by, though, I got more interested.”
— Paul McCartney
126. “If anyone had told me in the ’60s that 20 years later we’d still be talking about whether pot was worse than this or that, I’d have said, Oh, come off it, boys.”
— Paul McCartney
127. “It’s a powerful thing hearing your friend on a very beautiful song.”
— Paul McCartney
128. “Where I come from, you don’t really talk about how much you’re earning. Those things are private. My dad never told my mum how much he was earning. I’m certainly not going to tell the world. I’m doing well.”
— Paul McCartney
129. “My arrest was on every bloody TV set. The other prisoners all knew who I was and asked me to sing.”
— Paul McCartney
130. “We don’t eat anything that has to be killed for us. We’ve been through a lot and we’ve reached a stage where we really value life.”
— Paul McCartney
131. “George Martin, he’s very good at a very sort of lush, sweet arrangement.”
— Paul McCartney
132. “I think the minute you’re full up and have had enough to eat, then that’s time to retire.”
— Paul McCartney
133. “I guess the ultimate luxury professionally is to be able to change your direction, to work in another medium.”
— Paul McCartney
134. “It’s been my ambition for about 30 years to do a full- length animation film.”
— Paul McCartney
135. “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.”
— Paul McCartney
136. “The strange thing is, we never owned our own publishing; it was always getting bought and sold.”
— Paul McCartney
137. “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.”
— Paul McCartney
138. “I never really got on that well with Yoko anyway. Strangely enough, I only started to get to know her after John’s death.”
— Paul McCartney
139. “Lyricists play with words.”
— Paul McCartney
140. “John could write a mean song. He had a lot of venom in him. Whereas I had a happy childhood.”
— Paul McCartney
141. “I have not practiced how to be a singer without an instrument.”
— Paul McCartney
142. “When you got a job to do, you got to do it well. You gotta give the other fellow hell.”
— Paul McCartney
143. “The thing you must remember is that I’m the Number One John Lennon fan. I love him to this day and I always did love him.”
— Paul McCartney
144. “When we were kids we always used to say, ‘Okay, whoever dies first, get a message through.’ When John died, I thought, ‘Well, maybe we’ll get a message,’ because I know he knew the deal. I haven’t had a message from John.”
— Paul McCartney
145. “At the office where the paper grows, she takes a break, drinks another coffee, and she finds it hard to stay awake. It’s just another day.”
— Paul McCartney
146. “Having a beard is natural. When you think about it, shaving it off is quite weird.”
— Paul McCartney
147. “Hamburg totally wrecked us. I remember getting home to England and my dad thought I was half-dead. I looked like a skeleton, I hadn’t noticed the change, I’d been having such a ball!”
— Paul McCartney
148. “My mum died when I was 14. That is a kind of strange age to lose a mother. John lost his mum when he was 17.”
— Paul McCartney
149. “Linda’s at her best when she’s doing you a meal at home. That’s when you see Linda. She cooks, she looks after the kids.”
— Paul McCartney
150. “One may not eat what has a face.”
— Paul McCartney
151. “She is the rock ‘n’ roll queen. Weirdly enough, that is one of the things her reign will be remembered for. Queen Elizabeth I, we remember Raleigh; Queen Elizabeth II it’s gonna be the Beatles.”
— Paul McCartney
152. “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.”
— Paul McCartney
153. “A hundred years from now, people will listen to the music of the Beatles the same way we listen to Mozart.”
— Paul McCartney
154. “Animation is not just for children – it’s also for adults who take drugs.”
— Paul McCartney
155. “Why would I retire? Sit at home and watch TV? No thanks. I’d rather be out playing.”
— Paul McCartney
156. “That’s the terrible thing about growing up. You lose friends. It’s inevitable. It’s not like it’s a surprise. But it is terrible.”
— Paul McCartney
157. “I meet so many people that just sort of say, “I want to thank you for your music. It really helped me” or “It changed my life.””
— Paul McCartney
158. “I lost my voice. I’d never had to cancel a show before and I had to walk around with a pad and a pen, writing things down.”
— Paul McCartney
159. “What I have to say is all in the music. If I want to say anything, I write a song.”
— Paul McCartney
160. “I have always adored Mahler, and Mahler was a major influence on the music of the Beatles. John and me used to sit and do the Kindertotenlieder and Wunderhorn for hours, we’d take turns singing and playing the piano. We thought Mahler was gear.”
— Paul McCartney
161. “I don’t take me seriously. If we get some giggles, I don’t mind.”
— Paul McCartney
162. “Help them to learn songs of joy, instead of burn, baby, burn.”
— Paul McCartney
163. “I definitely did look up to John. We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest.”
— Paul McCartney
164. “I realized marvelling at nature was a deep pleasure of mine.”
— Paul McCartney
165. “I’ve got a few guitars that I like. The trouble with fame and riches is that you have more than one guitar.”
— Paul McCartney
166. “I realize now that taking drugs was like taking an aspirin without having a headache.”
— Paul McCartney
167. “If children are studying the 20th century, I’m in their text books.”
— Paul McCartney
168. “I’m singing ‘English Tea’ from my new album ‘Chaos and Creation in the Backyard.’ I have a cup of tea in the morning, so it’s something good to wake up to.”
— Paul McCartney
169. “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.”
— Paul McCartney
170. “If they won’t come to worship God in a church, something must be done. We have to instigate a nationwide search for a way to make it fun.”
— Paul McCartney
171. “No one is out to break your heart, it only seems that way.”
— Paul McCartney
172. “We got into music to avoid a job, and get lots of girls.”
— Paul McCartney
173. “I play to all people, and I play to people not governments, and I believe strongly that all people are peaceful and would want peace.”
— Paul McCartney
174. “Nothing pleases me more than to go into a room and come out with a piece of music.”
— Paul McCartney
175. “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.”
— Paul McCartney
176. “A lot of the Beatles albums were very various, and we did it on purpose: We didn’t want the next track to sound like the last one.”
— Paul McCartney
177. “When you said you were a terrible singer, I thought you were being humble. But you weren’t.”
— Paul McCartney
178. “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.”
— Paul McCartney
179. “I doubt very much if The Beatles would have happened if it was not for Elvis.”
— Paul McCartney
180. “I don’t have any desire to learn. I feel it’s like a voodoo, that it would spoil things if I actually learnt how things are done.”
— Paul McCartney
181. “I was still 15 when I met John Lennon at a village fete in Woolton, in Liverpool.”
— Paul McCartney
182. “The planet is under pressure and our choices have never been more important. The Food Revolution Summit is an informative and empowering platform which highlights ways to set a new pattern for the future of the planet.”
— Paul McCartney
183. “No matter how accomplished or how many awards you get, you’re always still thinking there’s somebody out there who’s better than you.”
— Paul McCartney
184. “Lady Madonna lying on the bed Listen to the music playing in your head.”
— Paul McCartney
185. “Home in her apartment she’d dwell ’til the man from her dreams comes to break the spell.”
— Paul McCartney
186. “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.”
— Paul McCartney
187. “When you get the money, you still need to keep going; you don’t stop. There has to be something else. I think it’s the freedom to do what you want and to live your dreams.”
— Paul McCartney
188. “I don’t know anything about the Appalachian mountains or cowboys and Indians or anything. I just made it up.”
— Paul McCartney
189. “As far as art’s concerned, I probably like modern art more than traditional art.”
— Paul McCartney
190. “Personal differences, musical differences, business differences, but most of all because I have a better time with my family.”
— Paul McCartney
191. “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.”
— Paul McCartney
192. “John’s time and effort were, in the main, spent on pretty honorable stuff. As for the other side, well, nobody’s perfect, nobody’s Jesus. And look what they did to him.”
— Paul McCartney
193. “I support decriminalisation. People are smoking pot anyway and to make them into criminals is wrong. It’s when you’re in jail you really become a criminal.”
— Paul McCartney
194. “The good Lord made this world and everything that’s in it. The way I see it, baby, you got to love it to the limit.”
— Paul McCartney
195. “George wrote Taxman, and I played guitar on it. He wrote it in anger at finding out what the taxman did. He had never known before then what could happen to your money.”
— Paul McCartney
196. “It’s as serious as anyone ever gets, you know. It’s just words. It’s just good poetry.”
— Paul McCartney
197. “Going to do it to you sweet banana, like it’s never been done, and we’ll get high, high, high, in the mid-day sun.”
— Paul McCartney
198. “It comes in handy in situations like that. People always expect you to be riding around in stretch limousines all the time, but I will sometimes take public transportation if it’s convenient, and it does surprise people, you see the heads turn.”
— Paul McCartney
199. “I hate the idea of success robbing you of your private life.”
— Paul McCartney
200. “I do have a spongelike ear or mentality or whatever you call it, but it’s probably a bit subconscious.”
— Paul McCartney
