George Harrison Quotes

Source: I, Me, Mine

Think for Yourself (1965)
Lyrics
Context: Do what you want to do,
And go where you're going to.
Think for yourself
'Cause I won't be there with you.

Interview with Mukunda Goswami (4 September 1982)
Context: My idea in "My Sweet Lord," because it sounded like a "pop song," was to sneak up on them a bit. The point was to have the people not offended by "Hallelujah," and by the time it gets to "Hare Krishna," they're already hooked, and their foot's tapping, and they're already singing along "Hallelujah," to kind of lull them into a sense of false security. And then suddenly it turns into "Hare Krishna," and they will all be singing that before they know what's happened, and they will think, "Hey, I thought I wasn't supposed to like Hare Krishna!"

Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth) (1973)
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Old Brown Shoe (1969)
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While My Guitar Gently Weeps (1968)
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The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 296

Interview with Selina Scott on West 57th Street (aired 12 December 1987)

The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 267

Source: George Harrison, 1992 in Joshua M. Greene, Here Comes the Sun: The Spiritual and Musical Journey of George Harrison, John Wiley & Sons (Hoboken, NJ, 2006; ISBN 978-0-470-12780-3).

– George Harrison, 1991 in Elliot J. Huntley, Mystical One: George Harrison – After the Break-up of the Beatles, Guernica Editions (Toronto, ON, 2006; ISBN 1-55071-197-0).

Introduction to Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead (1970) by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada
Context: If there's a God, I want to see Him. It's pointless to believe in something without proof, and Krishna consciousness and meditation are methods where you can actually obtain God perception. In that way you can see, hear and play with God. Perhaps this may sound weird, but God is really there next to you.

When asked about John Lennon's feelings towards his autobiography, interview with Selina Scott on West 57th Street, aired 12 December 1987
Context: He was annoyed 'cause I didn't say that he'd written one line of this song "Taxman." But I also didn't say how I wrote two lines of "Come Together" or three lines of "Eleanor Rigby," you know? I wasn't getting into any of that. I think, in the balance, I would have had more things to be niggled with him about than he would have had with me!

Here Comes the Sun (1969)
Lyrics
Context: Little darling,
It's been a long cold lonely winter.
Little darling,
It feels like years since it's been here.
Here comes the sun...

Interview with Selina Scott on West 57th Street (aired 12 December 1987)
Context: I had no ambition when I was a kid other than to play guitar and get in a rock 'n' roll band. I don't really like to be the guy in the white suit at the front. Like in the Beatles, I was the one who kept quiet at the back and let the other egos be at the front.

Quoted in Dark Horse: The Life and Art of George Harrison, Geoffrey Giuliano, Da Capo Press, , p. 80. http://books.google.com/books?id=0PLygywwfL8C&pg=PA80&dq=if+you+drop+out+you+put+yourself+further+away+from+the+goal+of+life+than+if+you+were+to+keep+working&hl=en&sa=X&ei=0a6NT_nKD6PC2QX434mQDA&ved=0CDAQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=if%20you%20drop%20out%20you%20put%20yourself%20further%20away%20from%20the%20goal%20of%20life%20than%20if%20you%20were%20to%20keep%20working&f=false
Context: I don't mind anybody dropping out of anything, but it's the imposition on somebody else I don't like. The moment you start dropping out and then begging off somebody else to help you, then it's no good. It doesn't matter what you are as long as you work. It doesn't matter if you chop wood as long as you chop and keep chopping. Then you get what's coming to you. You don't have to drop out. In fact, if you drop out you put yourself further away from the goal of life than if you were to keep working.

Expressing disenchantment with the "Summer of Love" hippies of San Francisco's famous “hippie haven” i.e., the Haight-Ashbury district, which he visited on August 7, 1967.
Quoted in Dark Horse: The Life and Art of George Harrison, Geoffrey Giuliano, Da Capo Press, , p. 80. http://books.google.com/books?id=0PLygywwfL8C&pg=PA80&dq=%22hideous,+spotty+little+teenagers%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2Z6NT6-RM6Wr2AW8maGMDA&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22hideous%2C%20spotty%20little%20teenagers%22&f=false
Context: I'd thought it would be something like King's Road [London], only more. Somehow I expected them all to own their own little shops. I expected them to all be nice and clean and friendly and happy … (on the contrary, I discovered them to be) hideous, spotty little teenagers.

Asked for his greatest ambition. Pop Chronicles, Show 28 - The British Are Coming! The British Are Coming!: The U.S.A. is invaded by a wave of long-haired English rockers. Part 2 http://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc19783/m1/, ( 1964 https://archive.is/ty0cr, broadcast 1969 http://classicdjradioscrapbook.blogspot.com/2009/04/krla-pop-chronicles-program-1969-2-of-2.html).
Context: If you'd have asked me that question, 9 months ago, well, I would have been able to say, to come to America, to have a number one hit in America, and to play Carnegie Hall, to play the Palladium, to play in front of the Queen, and all that.... The things we've done, they were our ambitions, say 9 months ago.

Introduction to Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead (1970) by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada; this paraphrases some statements from An Autobiography of a Yogi (1948) by Paramahansa Yogananda
Context: From the Hindu perspective, each soul is divine. All religions are branches of one big tree. It doesn't matter what you call Him just as long as you call. Just as cinematic images appear to be real but are only combinations of light and shade, so is the universal variety a delusion. The planetary spheres, with their countless forms of life, are naught but figures in a cosmic motion picture. One's values are profoundly changed when he is finally convinced that creation is only a vast motion picture and that not in, but beyond, lies his own ultimate reality.

Introduction to Kṛṣṇa, the Supreme Personality of Godhead (1970) by A. C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada; this paraphrases some statements from An Autobiography of a Yogi (1948) by Paramahansa Yogananda
Context: From the Hindu perspective, each soul is divine. All religions are branches of one big tree. It doesn't matter what you call Him just as long as you call. Just as cinematic images appear to be real but are only combinations of light and shade, so is the universal variety a delusion. The planetary spheres, with their countless forms of life, are naught but figures in a cosmic motion picture. One's values are profoundly changed when he is finally convinced that creation is only a vast motion picture and that not in, but beyond, lies his own ultimate reality.

The Beatles Anthology (2000), p. 226

Within You Without You, from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
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Source: I, Me, Mine

While My Guitar Gently Weeps (1968)
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Here Comes the Sun (1969)
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While My Guitar Gently Weeps (1968)
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The Inner Light (song) (1968), On Transcendental Meditation and teachings of Maharishi Mahesh Yogi
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Only a Northern Song (1967)
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Something (1969)
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"It's All Too Much" (1967)
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While My Guitar Gently Weeps (1968)
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My Sweet Lord (1970)
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Quoted in The Beatles — After the Break-up : In Their Own Words (1991) by David Bennahum, p. 54

Think for Yourself (1965)
Lyrics

Expressing disenchantment with the "Summer of Love" hippies of San Francisco's famous “hippie haven” i.e., the Haight-Ashbury district, which he visited on 7 August 1967, as quoted in Dark Horse: The Life and Art of George Harrison, Geoffrey Giuliano, Da Capo Press, ISBN 0306807475 ISBN 9780306807473, p. 80. http://books.google.com/books?id=0PLygywwfL8C&pg=PA80&dq=%22hideous,+spotty+little+teenagers%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=2Z6NT6-RM6Wr2AW8maGMDA&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=%22hideous%2C%20spotty%20little%20teenagers%22&f=false

Also, the reluctance of the press to report the full details created the need to bring attention to it. So the song "Bangla Desh" was written specifically to get attention to the war prior to the concert.
– George Harrison, 1979, George Harrison, I Me Mine, Chronicle Books (San Francisco, CA, 2002; ISBN 0-8118-3793-9).