George Harrison, MBE, was an award-winning English rock guitarist, singer, songwriter, author and sitarist best known as the lead guitarist for The Beatles. Following the band's breakup, Harrison had a successful career as a solo artist and later as part of the Traveling Wilburys super group where he was known as both Nelson Wilbury and Spike Wilbury. He was also a film producer, with his production company Handmade Films, involving people as diverse as Madonna and the members of Monty Python. After Harrison embraced Hinduism in the 1960s, his spiritual convictions were often evident in his music and public activities.
“The only thing we really have to work at in this life is how to manifest love.”
“Love one another.”
“So it's the unwinding of your nervous system. The corresponding experience to what winds you up comes out in your dreams. To write a song then, even one like Don't Bother Me, helps to get rid of some subconscious burden. Writing a song is like going to confession.”
“George: [On getting the M.B.E.]'After all we did for Great Britain, selling all that corduroy and making it swing, they gave us that bloody old leather medal with wooden string through it. But my initial reaction was, 'Oh, how nice, how nice.' And John's was, 'How nice, how nice.”
“George: [On the 'Two Virgins' cover]'What I thought of the sleeve then was the same as I think now: it's just two not-very-nice-looking bodies, two flabby bodies naked. It's harmless, really - different strokes for different folks.”
“George: 'Ringo would always say grammmatically incorrect phrases and we'd all laugh. I remember when we were driving back to Liverpool from Luton up the M1 motorway in Ringo's Zephyr, and the car's bonnet hadn't been latched properly. The wind got under it and blew it up in front of the windscreen. We were all shouting, 'Aaaargh!' and Ringo calmly said, 'Don't worry, I'll soon have you back in your safely-beds.”
“I have suffered for this book; now it's your turn.”
“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.”
“Sometimes I feel like I’m actually on the wrong planet. It’s great when I’m in my garden, but the minute I go out the gate I think, ‘What the hell am I doing here?”
“Your own space, man, it's so important. That's why we were doomed because we didn't have any. It is like monkeys in a zoo. They die. You know, everything needs to be left alone.”
“I was naive and thought we could express our feelings to each other- not suppress them and keep holding them back. Well, it was what I felt, and why should I be untrue to myself? I came to believe the importance that if you feel something strong enough then you should say it.”
“What is life?”
“That's it really; it's all love, whichever way you look at it, it's all love. How much you can get from each other and that's determined by how much you're giving to each other. But it all starts within our self and then it spreads to those around us, good and bad. But basically, that's it, I think it's the love that we can generate is equal to the love that we get back ... Amen.”
“Avant Garde is French for bullshit.”
“Give me loveGive me loveGive me peace on earthGive me lightGive me lifeKeep me free from birthGive me hopeHelp me cope, with this heavy loadTrying to, touch and reach you with,heart and soul”
“Some things take so longBut how do I explainWhen not too many peopleCan see we're all the sameAnd because of all their tearsYour eyes can't hope to seeThe beauty that surrounds themNow, isn't it a pity”
“Without looking out of my windowI could know the ways of heaven”
“Try to realize it's all within yourself no one else can make you change, and to see you're only very small and life flows on within you and without you.”
“The Beatles saved the world from boredom.”
“Most people's reality is an illusion, a great big illusion. You automatically have to succumb to the illusion that 'I am this body'. I am not George. I am not really George. I am this living thing that goes on, always has been, always will be, but at this time I happen to be in 'this' body. The body has changed; was a baby, was a young man, will soon be an old man, and I'll be dead. The physical body will pass but this bit in the middle, that's the only reality. All the rest is the illusion, so to say that somebody thinks we are, the ex-Beatles are removed from reality in their personal concept. It does not have any truth to it just because somebody thinks it. They are the concepts which become layer upon layer of illusion. Why live in the darkness all your life? Why, if you are unhappy, if you are having a miserable time, why not just look at it. Why are you in the darkness? Look for the light. The light is within. That is the big message”
“If everyone who had a gun just shot themselves, there wouldn't be a problem.”
“The saddest thing was actually getting fed up with one another. It's like growing up in a family. When you get to a certain age, you want to go off and get your own girl and your own car, split up a bit.”
“My son looks more like George Harrison than I do.”
“As long as you hate, there will be people to hate.”
“With our love, we could save the world.”
“Anyway, there is one thing I have learned and that is not to dress uncomfortably, in styles which hurt: winklepicker shoes that cripple your feet and tight pants that squash your balls. Indian clothes are better.”
“Hare Krishna, Peace and Love”
“If you drive a car, I'll tax the street;if you try to sit, I'll tax your seat; if you get too cold, I'll tax the heat; if you take a walk, I'll tax your feet.”
“I remember thinking I just want more. This isn't it. Fame is not the goal. Money is not the goal. To be able to know how to get peace of mind, how to be happy, is something you don't just stumble across. You've got to search for it.”
“All things must pass.”
“All the world is birthday cake, so take a piece but not too much.”
“I think people who truly can live a life in music are telling the world, ‘You can have my love, you can have my smiles. Forget the bad parts, you don’t need them. Just take the music, the goodness, because it’s the very best, and it’s the part I give most willingly”
“When you've seen beyond yourself, then you may find, peace of mind is waiting there.”
“It doesn't really matter what chords I play, what words I say or time of day it is, as it's only a Northern Song.”
“Show me that I m everywhere and get me home for tea.”
“With every mistake, we must surely be learning.”
“Life goes on within you and without you”
“It's being here now that's important. There's no past and there's no future. Time is a very misleading thing. All there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can't relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don't know if there is one.”
“It's all too much.”
“It's all in the mind.”
“If you don't know where you're going, any road'll take you there”