I’m not very keen on being disciplined. It seems odd being a Beatle, because we’re disciplined, but we don’t feel as though we’re disciplined. I don’t mind being disciplined and not realizing it. … I hardly ever alter anything because I’m selfish about what I write or bigheaded about it. Once I’ve written it, I like it. And the publisher sometimes says, you know, ‘Should we leave this out, or change that?’ And I fight like mad because once I’ve done it, I like to keep it. I might add things when I go over it before it’s published, but I seldom take anything out. So it is spontaneous. … I was ignorant of Lear. I’d heard the name obviously, you know, somewhere. But we didn’t do him at school, and the only sort of classic kind or very highbrow kind of things I’d read were at school. And... what is it? Joyce and Chaucer - I might have read a bit of Chaucer at school, because I think they do that. So I bought all the books that they said it was like. I bought one book on Edward Lear, I bought ‘Finnegan’s Wake’ and a big book on Chaucer. And I couldn’t see any resemblance to any of them. A little bit of ‘Finnegan’s Wake’, but ‘Finnegan’s Wake’ was so way out and so different. Just a few word changes, but anybody who changes words is gonna be - has got to be compared. His stuff is just something else. … I love ‘Alice In Wonderland’ and ‘Alice Through The Looking Glass’. But I didn’t even know he’d written anything else. I was that ignorant. I just happened to get those for birthday presents as a child and liked them. And I usually read those two about once a year, because I still like them. … It just so happens that my feelings about colored people, or religion, or anything like that, do happen to work with the way I write. I make fun of colored people in the book, and christians and jews, but really, I’m not against them. … I read most newspapers all the time, you know. Because we’re often in newspapers, and it’s still nice to read about yourself. And then after I’ve looked and seen we’re not in it, then I go through the rest of it. And then I finally end up reading the political bit, when I’ve read everything else. I can’t help being up with the times, because I am part of the times through what we’ve been up with, really. … I draw like I write. I just start and draw, and if it looks like something vaguely to do with a story, I do it.

       If I hadn’t been a Beatle I just wouldn’t have thought of having the stuff published because I would’ve been crawling around, broke, and just writing it and throwing it away. I might’ve been a Beat poet. … The longest thing I’ve written is in this book. It’s one about Sherlock Holmes, and it seemed like a novel to me but it turned out to be six pages. … I wrote so many characters in it I forgot who they were. … I started all this writing long before I was a Pop artist, or even a Beatle, or before I had a guitar. The guitars came second. … If I had more time I’d probably write more. The publisher rang up and said, ‘Have you written anything yet?’, and I said, ‘No, I’ve been writing songs’, because I can’t do both at once. You know, I’ve got to concentrate on the book or the songs. So I haven’t written anything since then.

       I was just tagged chief Beatle. … I don’t do anything extra.

       They’re just sort of ordinary sunglasses, only they’ve got mirror on one side, so nobody can see in.

       We still like it, or we wouldn’t be touring. … Till people stop coming to see us.

       I didn’t read that article, but I think it’s quite funny. No, we’re not.

       Yes, because I think I’m under contract now, but I’ve got nothing in mind. It’ll be the same stuff only backwards.

       How do you know we can’t hear ourselves think? You weren’t in our minds, were you. We can hear ourselves think or we’d forget what we were doing.

       We’d never start our own label. It’s too much trouble.

       People