110 Ringo Starr Quotes

Ringo Starr is known by his stage name, but his real name is Sir Richard Starkey.

He is a musician, songwriter, singer, and actor from England who is known all over the world for being the drummer of the Beatles. Ringo Starr sometimes sang lead vocals for the band, which usually were a song in each album.

Ringo Starr replaced Pete Best as the Beatles drummer by joining the Beatles in August 1962 after the Beatles manager Brian Epstein signed him. With him as the drummer, Paul McCartney as the bass line, John Lennon and George Harrison as the lead guitar players, the Beatles ruled the world including America. Ringo wrote and sang many Beatles songs. He was the new boy and never was the creative leader of the group. But his work, music, thoughts, writings, and drum beats have made Ringo Starr one of the most popular parts of the Beatles. Ringo Starr's first band was 'Rory Storm and the Hurricanes'. His most famous Beatles song is 'With A Little Help From My Friends' which is part of the 1967 Beatles album 'Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band'.

Learn some more about the Beatles drummer Ringo Starr through these Ringo Starr quotes in the coming topics.

Peace and Love were the dreams of the group. The new boy in the Beatles made the peace dream his life's motto later on in his life as can be witnessed today with the Peace and Love day being celebrated every year on his birthday on July 7 by hundreds of people around the world. Here are some Ringo Starr quotes to make you believe in it.

"In the band I was in, we knew when we’d done the take, because it just feels good. It’s like golf. When you hit that ball right, you know. You feel it – you feel the connection. And connecting is good."

"The Beatles were just four guys that loved each other. That’s all they’ll ever be."

"Of course I’m ambitious. What’s wrong with that? Otherwise you sleep all day."

"America: It’s like Britain, only with buttons."

"I like Beethoven, especially the poems."

"I was the new boy. It was like joining a new class at school where everybody knows everybody else but me."

"You got to pay your dues if you want to sing the blues…And you know it don’t come easy."

"I think we should have understanding and love and peace. I mean, peace and love has been my situation. You hear that in the song. I'm trying to promote that now: peace and love and understanding."

"I don’t mind talking or smiling, it’s just I don’t do it very much. I haven’t got a smiling face or a talking mouth."

"Do you remember when everyone began analyzing Beatles songs, I don’t think I ever understood what some of them were supposed to be about."

"I think the most exciting thing is that you expect people our age to know the music, but actually a lot of kids know the music, and if anything is left, we have left really good music. And that`s the important part, not the mop-tops or whatever."

"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 get up in the morning and I meditate. I go to the gym and I have a trainer, and I work out myself too, when I’m on the road."

"I’m a vegetarian. When we’re on tour, to get out of the hotel, I usually go to the local organic shop just to see what they’ve got."

"I was the new boy. It was like joining a new class at school where everybody knows everybody else but me."

"Last night I had a peace dream."

“So this is America. They must be out of their minds.”

"I didn't play drums to make money. I played drums because I loved them."

- To The Big Beat: Conversations with Rock's Great Drummers (1984)

"I had no schooling before I joined The Beatles and no schooling after The Beatles. Life is a great education."

"We were honest with each other and we were honest about the music. The music was positive. It was positive in love. They did write – we all wrote – about other things, but the basic Beatles message was Love."

"I do get emotional when I think back about those times. My make-up is emotional. I’m an emotional human being. I’m very sensitive and it took me till I was forty-eight to realize that was the problem!"

"I never studied anything, really. I didn’t study the drums. I joined bands and made all the mistakes onstage."

"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."

"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'."

"I like kids; I used to be one."

"Peace and love, peace and love!"

"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."

"But the feel I have—many of you have asked me about my feel—that just comes from God. I truly believe that my heartbeat keeps the tempo, because I naturally have great time, as you all noticed, and that’s not blowing my own horn. I just have great time, and that’s the rhythm of my heart and my soul."

"I am truly grateful. I’m a grateful human being."

"I'm warning you with peace and love I have too much to do. So no more fan mail. Thank you, thank you. And no objects to be signed, nothing. Peace and love, peace and love."

Read some Ringo Starr quotes that are popular all over the world.

"The trouble with leaving your feet on the ground is you never get to take your pants off."

"Let's make my birthday, July the 7th at noon, Peace and Love Day. Everybody go, 'Peace and love.' In the office, on the bus, wherever. It's still peace and love for me, I'm a product of the ’60s and it was a very influential period in my life, and you know, my head was turned around a bit, my eyes were opened as it were. In fact, I even have it on my arm, 'Peace and love'. I see nothing wrong with peace and love."

"At the end of the day, I can end up just totally wacky, because I've made mountains out of molehills. With meditation, I can keep them as molehills."

"I'm on my feet and I'm doing what I love to do, and I'm in a profession, as a musician, where we can go on for as long as we can go on."

"I learned to knit in hospital. They give you stuff to do to keep you busy because you're so ill."

"I know when I feel good when I play. There's a closeness with musicians you only get from playing live, even in the studio it's still playing live. For me, it's what expands my soul."

“ My soul is that of a drummer... It came to where I had to make a decision - I was going to be a drummer. Everything else goes now. I play drums. It was a conscious moment in my life when I said the rest of things were getting in the way. I didn't do it to become rich and famous, I did it because it was the love of my life.”

"We will miss George for his sense of love, his sense of music, and his sense of laughter."

"They said do what you want because if we don't like it no one will hear it."

"If you could play, I'd play with you all night. But if I'm just playing by myself, it gets boring pretty quick."

"I used to wear different rings when I first got called Ringo in about 19, about, umm, '59 I got called Ringo."

"They paint you red before they sacrifice you. It's a different religion from ours - I think."

"I have a trainer who comes three times a week and just listens to me moan... and I keep fit and keep moving... and I do watch what I eat. I am a vegetarian... I can't eat crazy food. I'm highly allergic to onions and garlic and spices... I've never had a pizza, never had a curry."

"I mean, women are very important to me. I don't know, they just drive me crazy."

"We'd get in the car and I'd look over at John and say 'Christ. Look at you. You're a bloody phenomenon!' and just laugh because it was only him."

"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 don't particularly like messages, because everybody takes whatever they take from whatever."

"My occupation is syncopation. But, every time, my syncopation is different, because I can never play the same fill twice. I just can't, never have been able to."

"John had Julian and I had Zak so we'd try to do the fatherly things. We'd try to do manly things too; we'd go to the pub and bring Maureen and Cynthia a Babycham or something- a real Liverpool attitude."

"I don't collect any memorabilia. I wish I'd have kept everything I had. But who knew you had to keep it. Just gave it away. And we lost so much and we didn't look after a lot of it."

"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."

"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 teddy boy 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."

"This was the point of our lives when we found pills, uppers. That's the only way we could continue playing for so long. They were called Preludin, and you could buy them over the counter. We never thought we were doing anything wrong, but we'd get really wired and go on for days. So with beer and Preludin, that's how we survived."

"When I'm ninety-five and it's 'This is Your Life' time, they'll still be referring to me as 'ex-Beatle'...it does have its advantages. It's still the best way to get a good table at a restaurant."

"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."

"When I run on stage now, a thousand people don't even see you, they're on their phones."

"I play weird. I'm always just behind. We [drummers] only have so much room. We're not guitarists."

"The point is it is amazing that the generations have joined in the Beatle madness and love the music. Who knew?"

"I mean, I was born the day war broke out, but I don't remember all the bombs though they did actually break up Liverpool, you know. I remember when I was a little older, there were big gaps in all the streets where houses used to be. We used to play over them."

“And so we went away to play, and we'd come back to Liverpool. And while we were doing this - 'cuz we did it for two years. And then we'd go to Germany, and that's where I met the Beatles.”

Ringo Starr has always been an inspiration and here are some inspirational Ringo Starr quotes for you to read and think of a peaceful dream.

"My soul is that of a drummer... I didn't do it to become rich and famous. I did it because it was the love of my life."

"You either kiss the future or the past goodbye."

"I feel the older I get, the more I'm learning to handle life. Being on this quest for a long time, it's all about finding yourself."

"Take a dose of rock and roll, and wash it down with cool clear soul."

"I'm left-handed and I'm playing a right-handed kit... That's why everyone thought, 'Wow, he's a genius,' but all I was doing was trying to play backward... It's one of those mad accidents, you can't learn it."

"I've always felt that a space is as good as a fill."

"With God's help, I've not had a drink in nine and a half years. That's my whole story right there. And because of that, I'm doing this. I'm making records, I'm touring. I was so involved in just getting brain damaged that I wasn't doing anything. I had great ideas, many notebooks filled with notes, some of them I can read and some of them I just can't read, but I really didn't do anything constructive, it was all just good ideas. Now I'm trying to lead a constructive life a day at a time."

"That's all drugs and alcohol do, they cut off your emotions in the end."

"I don't like talking. It's how I'm built. Some people gab all day and some play it smog. I don't mind talking or smiling, it's just I don't do it very much. I haven't got a smiling face or a talking mouth."

"I hope the fans will take up meditation instead of drugs."

"The drummer's always going to be there. They're the floor of the whole deal and everyone can stand up on you."

"I am a big Beatles fan. And, you know, unbeknownst to anyone, I used to be one. But I have no problems putting titles and lines from other songs in my songs because they're great lines and great titles."

"Being in The Beatles was a short, incredible period of my life. I had 22 years leading up to it, and it was all over eight years later."

"I'd like to be in a man band, but with Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, and Keith Richards. We'd have a rocky edge."

"I've been asked to write my autobiography and really they only want 8 years (1962-1970), and I keep saying it would be five volumes before I even got into the band!"

"From 13, I wanted to play drums. I wanted to play with good people and I'm still doing it. I still love it, so that's why I do it."

"I want to deal with what's in front of me now to the best of my abilities, and sometimes that's not very good. But a lot of the days it is really great."

"I'm nervous ahead of every gig. I feel like running away three seconds before I'm due on stage. But I'm all right as soon as I get the mic in my hand."

"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."

"I am the best rock drummer on the planet."

"The White Album is important to me for different reasons. One - I had left the band on the White Album."

"For me, I want to get across the stage to the people. I want to point at you, thirty, forty rows back, and you know I'm pointing at you, and we're having a laugh and getting it together."

"We [the band] had this open-door policy - if you walked in the door, you were asked to play."

"For me, God is in my life. I don't hide from that... I think the search has been on since the '60s."

Read some short and crisp Ringo Starr quotes here. He might not be the creative leader in the band but he sure had good insights about life including his peace dream.

"I've said this over and over again, but I love being in a band."

"Fondest memory of being a Beatle: Having three brothers."

"Well, I'm getting happier all the time, which is very nice."

"Roy Orbison was the only act that The Beatles didn't want to follow."

"I like Beethoven, especially the poems."

"I'd like to end up sort of unforgettable."

"I am, I definitely am. I'm really excited about that."

"I'm not going to say anything because nobody believes me when I do."

"When I was thirteen I only wanted to be a drummer."

"We thought we'd be really big in Liverpool."

"You're like the devil with horns in your head, the only way I'll get you is to get you in bed."

"Beatles, women, and children first!"

"Wake up meat head, don't pretend that you are dead."

"I'm not sleeping with all the women I appear with."

"People in Liverpool don't move very far, you know."

"I made all my mistakes playing with people."

"I love that about the Beatles, that the music is still going on more than the haircut, you know."

"I've never broken a bone in my life, or in my body."

"I feel as though that was someone else playing. I was possessed!"

"Drumming is my middle name."

"I like playing with a live band and I've got my act and we're fine."

"The second side of Abbey Road is my favorite."

"I think I'm more prolific in the songwriting."

"I've never had any big ideas about being the solo."

"If you made a record, I'd probably pick out tracks that I like and download that. That's just how it is."

"I don't talk about myself in the third person, and I laugh at people who do."

"I'm a musician and I'm really blessed, because in my life if I can hold the sticks, I can play."

"I'm the greatest in this world."