Brian Epstein Quotes

...the Beatles were hard men too. Brian Epstein cleaned them up for mass consumption, but they were anything but sissies. They were from Liverpool, which is like Hamburg or Norfolk, Virginia--a hard, sea-farin' town, all these dockers and sailors around all the time who would beat the piss out of you if you so much as winked at them. Ringo's from the Dingle, which is like the f***ing Bronx. The Rolling Stones were the mummy's boys--they were all college students from the outskirts of London. They went to starve in London, but it was by choice, to give themselves some sort of aura of disrespectability. I did like the Stones, but they were never anywhere near the Beatles--not for humour, not for originality, not for songs, not for presentation. All they had was Mick Jagger dancing about. Fair enough, the Stones made great records, but they were always s**t on stage, whereas the Beatles were the gear.

When I was six, Hitler, who had become rather a nuisance, launched a sustained attempt to destroy Liverpool, and though we lived several miles from the vulnerable docks target, our Childwall suburb became too close for comfort and safety.

Sir Thomas Beecham once said this at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall when I was there as a boy. He said ‘I’m often asked why operas survive generation after generation—La Bohème and things like that. And I always reply. ‘They survive because they consist of bloody good tunes’.

In an era when gay men like Beatles' manager Brian Epstein paid a fortune in blackmail to hustlers to keep their secrets safe, Andy Warhol took everything he was told to keep hidden and threw it right back in society's face.

WHATEVER happens tomorrow, one thing is certain; it must not be allowed to look after itself.

In this recording, she’s just accused by one of her best friends of plotting to murder her husband, who was in fact murdered, and she never says, ‘Oh no I didn’t.’ What she says is, ‘Wait, Marcus is involved?’” Fuchs urged jurors to listen to the entire audio recording between Denise and Kathy because “it lays out this entire case without Brian.

But there was a rumour—which lingered until it became acceptable currency—that I had bought the disc in bulk to get it into the charts. Possible though this would have been—had I the money, which I hadn’t—I did no such thing, nor ever have. The Beatles, then as now, progressed and succeeded on natural impetus, without benefit of stunt or back-door tricks and I would like to make this quite clear.

So much has been said that is exaggerated, inaccurate, extravagant and open to misinterpretation that I thought that a detailed account could only help and, I hope, prove of considerable public interest.

Basic training was at Aldershot and if there is a more depressing place than this in all Europe, then I would not be interested to know of it.

The contract had been drawn up by people who knew more about a fast buck than does a slow doe. I thought it an inhuman document providing simply for the enslavement of any artiste eager and gullible enough to place his name over a stamp. Its like is still around and there are several artistes, some of them quite well-known, bound by this form of contract. I am not permitted to name them but they and their owners know who are they.

Always America seemed too big, too vast, too remote and too American. I remember the night we heard about the number one position in Cashbox I said to John Lennon ‘There can be nothing more important than this,’ adding a tentative ‘Can there?

My parents were sent for and unfolded before them were my failings, itemized one by one in that catalogue-of-crime manner which comes so naturally to schoolmasters.

Why had I not signed it? I believe it was because even though I knew I would keep the contract in every clause, I had not 100 per cent faith in myself to help the Beatles adequately. In other words, I wanted to free the Beatles of their obligations if I felt they would be better off.

I began to feel a little more at evens with the world and I made friends with a little horse called ‘Amber’, who got on very well with Jews.

In England the driver is always the same, a huge man called Bill Corbett, who knows the problems, chief of which is the ability to speed fast enough to frighten fans out of the way, but not so fast that they get run over.

The Dutch police, in their enthusiasm to protect the four long-haired young men, did everything on a majestic scale. Even on a run to the country, masses of jack-booted, helmet-clad officers on motor cycles and side-cars flanked the Beatles’ car, telephoning constantly to a central control point while, at front and rear, police cars with sirens and blue lights shrieked and flashed warnings. It would probably have been much more effective to drive them quietly in one private car—though not nearly so exhilarating.

Interesting band. I want to manage them. It will cost me 4 hours per week.

New collaborations allow creators “to take ideas that are conventions in one area and bring them into a new area, where they’re suddenly seen as invention,” said sociologist Brian Uzzi, Amaral’s collaborator. Human creativity, he said, is basically an “import/export business of ideas.” Uzzi documented an import/export trend that began in both the physical and social sciences in the 1970s, pre-internet: more successful teams tended to have more far-flung members. Teams that included members from different institutions were more likely to be successful than those that did not, and teams that included members based in different countries had an advantage as well.

Rorion did for a generation of Brazilians what 30 years previously Brian Epstein did for a generation of English pop musicians, stimulating seemingly limitless demand for a product where none had existed before (Gould, 2007). But Rorion did it to an even greater degree, conceding that his system was basically judo. Helio felt the same way. In one of his last interviews, with Ana Missa on Sensei SporTV in 2009 (February 14), he explained that because he wasn’t physically suited for judo, he “modified jiu-jitsu so that a weak citizen like himself could fight” [pelo meu porte físico eu não podia ser judoka, então eu adaptei o jiu-jitsu para que até um cidadão fraco como eu pudesse lutar]. So there we have it. Gracie Jiu-Jitsu is pre-Olympic judo, taught by Helio’s method, whatever that is, and modified so that weak citizens can fight (apparently Helio felt that judo required too much strength, which is odd, because many of his promotional pictures and demonstrations involved judo throws). That doesn’t mean Gracie products and services aren’t worth what they cost. If judo people were teaching this material, people wouldn’t be paying Brazilians to do it. Rorion didn’t invent anything. What he did was to make it valuable.

Before sending the letter, David showed it to George—who protested. “His dad helped him concoct the letter—and it was concocted in that it said things like that famous quote ‘Brian Epstein’s got the Beatles and you should have us.’ ” Undeterred, David assured him, “Don’t worry. It will be all right.” His instincts were on the money. Bloom, amused by the youngster’s chutzpah, passed the letter on to Les Conn, a friend from the Jewish scene in Stamford Hill. Within a couple of days, a telegram arrived at David’s house instructing him to call Conn’s Temple Bar number.

Not to mince words Mr. Epstein, we don’t like your boys’ sound. Groups of guitarists are on the way out.

You must be out of your mind. These boys are going to explode. I am completely confident that one day they will be bigger than Elvis Presley.

The death of their manager Brian Epstein was the beginning of the end for The Beatles. While Yoko Ono did try to fill the power vacuum and exacerbate the cracks created by Epstein's loss, she was not solely responsible for The Fab Four's demise. As with every big event, there are many actors, factors and complexities at play and no one simple explanation for everything.

Ringo’s hair is an occupational hazard.

BRIAN EPSTEIN HAD ALWAYS SAID that the Beatles would be bigger than Elvis, and at first everyone laughed. Elvis was securely on his throne as the king of rock and roll and no one had heard of the Beatles. But by 1965 his prediction had come true: the Beatles were the biggest pop act in the world, eclipsing Elvis and every other popular musician.