Brian Epstein Quotes

I'm a musician, so for the most part I've always thought that the musicians were equally as inspiring to listen to - maybe more so, in some cases - in addition to the artists.

Tori Amos had a major influence on how I craft words in a song. Until I heard 'Little Earthquakes' all my lyrics used really obvious analogies like rain for tears.

Music has this emotional thing to it, and it touches people in crazy ways. The power of having that power is something that, once you have it, you don't want it to ever end.

I was a drummer, and I did a little singing too.

I've always listened to music while I write, but none of my work has been so directly impacted by a song as my new novel, 'So Cold the River,' for which the brilliant strings piece 'Short Trip Home,' composed by Edgar Meyer and featuring the incredible Joshua Bell on violin, inspired much of the story.

The drummer; he inspired me to play like no one else I have ever met.

When I heard Little Richard, I mean, it just set my world on fire.

If someone said, 'What was anything you could wish for,' it would have been to have Donald Tardy in my band as my drummer.

My material contribution musically was less than George's, and George and I have both always been very open about that.

I am a very big fan of Brian Eno, of his work as an artist and making his music, and as a producer. In some ways, I have looked to his career as a model for my own.

Could a person really make a social contribution through music consciously? I mean, beyond making a person happy to hear the song and more making a social contribution consciously through your music? For me, Stevie Wonder is the paragon of that. And I didn't want to be Stevie Wonder, but I did want to do what he does.

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

For people to link my music to their lives, it's incredible, there's no other feeling like it.

Usually people think that it is the musicians who create the music, but in fact it is music who creates the musicians.

The thing that a lot of people may or may not know is every artist is a cinephile, whether they watch movies whether they're painting, or have films that influence them.

What the soul is to the body, so is the artist to his people.

I write music, and I want people to listen to it and care about it and have it make some difference in their lives. When I'm fortunate for that to happen, then of course I feel very, very good about it.

There are so many people I look up to and I try to watch some sort of video or interview every day, with an artist who does inspire me.

Not many people bought Velvet Underground LPs, but those who did, started a band.

When I play for the people, every time I play for my audience they are hypnotized, seen. These guys know the potential of the music.

I've always been very happy with my role in Radiohead. You're very much a part of everything, but you're much more of a shadowy figure.

It probably all started with The Beatles, and then I guess it goes out from there. Springsteen... Fleetwood Mac... I mean, that's all so inherent in us that when we're making records now, we take a lot from the artists who are around us.

I grew up listening to a lot of that stuff, Motown and Stooges. But also early rock-and-roll like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Elvis Presley. I feel like as I grew older, I've been working with different musicians, people that have are constantly showing me different things.

I'm usually the last to see my influence in other people's work. People give me stuff and say "Oh look, this guy's ripping you off," and I'm like "What do you mean?" Often I see the people that I've ripped off filtered into my own work. In other people's work, I can only see specific, tiny little instances of inflections stolen from another artist.

I feel close to people like Jimi Hendrix because I connect with his music. Not the man but what he did.