“Life is very short and there’s no time for fusing and fighting, my friend.”

- The Beatles

“It’s actually an ode to pot, like someone else might write an ode to chocolate or a good claret.”

- Paul McCartney (talking about the song “Got to Get You Into My Life”)

“The song is said to be light and catchy, which means Paul wrote it, John hated it, Ringo did what he was told and George wasn’t allowed in the room”

- Jon Stewart

“I always heard it as a song to me… Yoko’s just come into the picture. He’s saying ‘Hey Jude—Hey John’ subconsciously he was saying ‘go ahead, leave me’ ”

- John Lennon (talking about the song Hey Jude)

“I thought it was pretty strange why we made the enormous impact that we did—or have still. It’s strange how the chemistry between the four of us made this big thing that went right through the world, even the most obscure places, that didn’t know about the Beatles—from grandparents to babies. It just blanketed everything, and that amazed me more than anything. We always felt that if we could get the right record contract, we’d be successful. But our tiny little concept of success that we had at the time was nothing compared to what happened. It was just enormous. It does make one think there’s more to this than meets the eye.”

- George Harrison as interviewed by Jenny Boyd for her book ‘Musicians in Tune’ which was published in 1992. (via geminichilde)

“On that November night, the studio atmosphere was so relaxed that John invited me to contribute to the album’s sound effects. Yoko and I took turned dropping coins in a tin bowl to duplicate the sound of someone giving change to a beggar. We had to do it several times before the noise level was just right. For most of the evening, I just watched John and Yoko at work—and took advantage of the breaks to ask them questions. The studio tape must have been running much of the time, because years later a bootleg of that interview surfaced in Japan. One thing troubled me during the all-night recording sessions: the way John would slip from time to time into an adjoining lounge. The first thing that came to mind was drugs, because I was so used to seeing musicians pass around bowls of cocaine with the callousness of M&Ms. John had had drugs problems earlier in his life, and I feared he had relapsed—despite all his talk about feeling healthier then ever. Maybe the pressure of being back in the studio was greater then he was letting on. At one point, I happened into the lounge and saw John at the far end of the narrow room. He was reaching for something on a cabinet shelf, and my first instinct was to go back into the studio so I would invade his privacy. But he spotted me and called me over, putting his finger to his lips in a signal to be quiet. When I was next to him, he reached into the cabinet again and pulled out something wrapped in a towel. “Want some?” he asked. “Just don’t tell Mother,” he said with a conspiratorial look. “She doesn’t want me doing this anymore.” As he opened the towel, I had to laugh. John Lennon’s private stash turned out to be a giant-size Hershey bar. He broke off a chunk for me and one for himself. Holding his piece in a toast, John smiled and said, “Good to see you again.”

- Robert Hilburn (Cornflakes with John Lennon)

“All my friends were the Beatles. There was the Beatles and about three other fellas I was really close with”

- John Lennon (from Rolling Stone Beatles 100 greatest songs)

“I’m generally upbeat but at certain times things get to me so much that I just can’t be upbeat anymore and that was one of those times. ‘Carry that weight a long time’—like forever.”

- Paul McCartney (talking about the song “Carry that Weight” from Beatles 100 Greatest songs)