People think we’re not conceited, but we are. If you ask me if I wrote good or bad songs, I’d be thick to say bad, wouldn’t I? It’s true we’re lucky, but we got where we are because of what we did.
The trouble is we never did do commercials with The Beatles. We had lots of big offers from soft drinks companies to do stuff. We always thought, no, it kind of spoils it. It just takes that little edge off it that people who like Beatles stuff kind of feel something for it. And that was what we were all about was trying to resist all those commercial offers. That’s what’s happening now is our songs are tending to get a little bit commercialized, which I’m not too wild on.
I spent my time [in the Tokyo jail] making a mental list of all those drugs which are legal but dangerous. We’re all on drugs - cigarettes, whiskey and wild, wild women. Society thinks alcohol is terrific, yet it kills. Cigarettes can kill. They are worse than marijuana. It’s just not true that marijuana can kill. What about the little old ladies on Valium? Think of aspirin’s danger to the stomach.
I thought I’d got the meaning to life that night. I went around, trying to find our roadie. ‘Mal, get a pencil and paper. I’ve got it! I’ve got it!’ And Mal was a bit out of it, he couldn’t find a pencil and paper anywhere. We eventually, at the end of the evening, found it and I wrote down my message for the universe. I said, ‘Now, keep that in your pocket!’ The next morning Mal said, ‘Hey Paul, did you wanna see that?’ I’d written: there are seven levels.
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Paul McCartney in Anthology, about the first time he smoked pot
[in case anyone didn’t know where “7levels” came from] :D
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We all looked up to John. He was older and he was very much the leader; he was the quickest wit and the smartest and all that kind of thing. So whenever he did praise any of us, it was great praise, indeed, because he didn’t dish it out much.
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Paul McCartney in a 1984 Playboy interview
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I got to see [George] a short time before he died, and it was just the best because we just sat, stroking hands. And this is a guy, you know, I’d known since he was a little kid and you don’t stroke hands with guys like that. It was just beautiful… a favorite memory of mine.
Don’t get up just yet, it’s much too cold and wet / Better stay in bed, hibernate instead / Fifteen minutes more, what you waiting for? Back into your dreams / Better stay inside, hibernate and hide.
Sadness isn’t sadness - it’s happiness in a black jacket. Death isn’t death - it’s life that’s jumped off a tall cliff. Tears are not tears - they’re balls of laughter dipped in salt.
