The main thing is not to be afraid of that, to get to a place where you'll go gracefully, not screaming and kicking up a fuss.

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.

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'

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

The business is so driven by money, everyone's trying to get it right.

That's when we decided to stop in '66. Everyone thought we toured for years, you know, but we didn't. I joined in '62, and we'd finished touring in '66 to go into the studio where we could hear each other... and create any fantasy that came out of anybody's brain.

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.