It's like if you're an astronaut and you've been to the moon, what do you want to do with the rest of your life?

I never look forward, because I have no idea about how any of it happened to getting here. I've no idea how the next five years are going to be.

The strange thing is, we never owned our own publishing; it was always getting bought and sold.

Somebody said to me, 'But the Beatles were anti-materialistic.' That's a huge myth. John and I literally used to sit down and say, 'Now, let's write a swimming pool.'

I don't work at being ordinary.

I am quite happy that the Beatles came and went. There is even a sort of glory in not having it go on forever. There is a complete body of work that went from A to Z and it is all pretty damn good stuff. The one thing I am particularly proud of is that nearly every single bit of it has some good message. I feel fortunate when I look back. Life is not easy, but I've been very lucky - and I'm touching wood as I say that.

But with writers, there's nothing wrong with melancholy. It's an important color in writing.