I'm not really a career person; I'm a gardener, basically.

After The Beatles came on the scene everyone started putting on a Liverpudlian accent.

I had a lot of it in my day, but I don't like it. It's a dumb drug. Your whole concentration goes on getting the next fix. I find caffeine easier to deal with.

One has to completely humiliate oneself to be what the Beatles were . . . . It happened bit by bit, until . . . you're doing exactly what you don't want to do with people you can't stand -- the people you hated when you were ten.

I enjoyed it when football crowds in the early days would sing 'All together now' - that was another one. I was also pleased when the movement in America took up 'Give peace a chance' because I had written it with that in mind really.

My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

Well, I don't want to be king, I want to be real.