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We weren’t like brothers, we were brothers.

Ringo Starr on The Beatles, 15 September 2016

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John Lennon backstage, 1963. Photo © Pictorial Press Limited.

"It’s still weird to even say, 'before he died.' I still can’t come to terms with it. I still don’t believe. It’s like, you know, these dreams you have, where he’s still alive; then you wake up and… 'Oh.’" - Paul McCartney

Q: "George, what do you miss most about John Lennon?" George Harrison: "John Lennon." - Yahoo web chat, 15 February 2001 [x]

"John was the kindest person I ever knew. he was the only one of the four of us who would give you his soul... And I loved the man dearly." - Ringo Starr [x]

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The Beatles reading fan mail, Green Street, London, 9 October 1963. Photo © The Beatles Book.

“I'd like to say thank you to all the Beatle people who have written to me during the year and everybody who sent gifts and cards for my birthday, which I'm trying to forget, in October. I'd love to reply personally to everybody but I just haven't enough pens.” - John Lennon, The Beatles Christmas Record (1963)

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Those guys’ inability to express love for one another was classic. The exception is Ringo, who says [in the film], ‘I love George, and George loved me.’ That wouldn’t have been so easy for Paul. […] [In rehearsals] Paul had to admit that he didn’t know 'All Things Must Pass,’ and that was an awful thing to confront. It was huge humble-pie stuff for Paul to be among people who he may have thought had a better relationship with George than he did. But I believe Paul missed George as much as - if not more than - anybody.

Eric Clapton on The Beatles, and the Concert for George, Rolling Stone, 9 October 2003 (via thateventuality)

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No matter how much we split, we're still very linked. We're the only four people who've seen the whole Beatlemania bit from the inside out, so we're tied forever, whatever happens.

Paul McCartney, 1970, quoted in The Beatles In Their Own Words: After The Break-Up

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Q: ‘George, you being the only single one of the group…’ George Harrison: 'What about Paul? Haven’t you heard about him? Let me introduce you.’ Paul McCartney: 'Hello, you goofed!’ Q: (rudely) 'May I continue? What are your matrimony plans?’ GH: 'Well that question, you know, it’s stupid for a start because Paul isn’t married either, is he? So if you’d like to ask the question again and count Paul in.’ PM: 'Right, and we’ll both talk at the same time.’ Q: 'What are your matrimony plans?’ GH: 'I haven’t any.’ Q: 'Paul, what about you and Jane Asher? What’s the story?’ PM: 'What about us?’ Ringo Starr: 'Go on, tell them.’ PM: 'Well, I haven’t said anything to anyone. But people keep writing about it, and putting it in papers and things. So um, you know… I’m getting to believe it. It’s daft, you know. I never said a word about it, anyway. They just keep quoting.’

The Beatles’ Atlanta, Georgia, press conference, 18 August 1965 (via thateventuality)

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Q: ‘I’d like to direct this question to Messrs. Lennon and McCartney. In a recent article, Time magazine put down pop music. And they referred to 'Day Tripper’ as being about a prostitute…’ Paul McCartney: [Nodding] 'Oh yeah.’ Q: ’…And 'Norwegian Wood’ as being about a lesbian.’ PM: [Nodding] 'Oh yeah.’ Q: 'I just wanted to know what your intent was when you wrote it, and what your feeling is about the Time magazine criticism of the music that is being written today.’ PM: 'We were just trying to write songs about prostitutes and lesbians, that’s all.’ [applause and laughter] John Lennon: 'Quipped Ringo.’ PM: (chuckles) 'Cut!’ JL: 'You can’t use it on the air, that.’

The Beatles’ Los Angeles press conference, 24 August 1966 (via thateventuality)

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The Beatles were a little unit on their own. We grew up together, we played all our apprenticeship together in Liverpool and Germany. We completely understood each other.

George Harrison, quoted in Anthony DeCurtis’ article George Harrison Gets Back, Rolling Stone, 22 October 1987 (via thateventuality)

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All The Beatles were equals. If things got too deep, Ringo would crack a one-liner and that kept us on a level. If things were getting too sentimental, John would harden it up. If John was getting too hostile, I’d soften it down. Then George was always on hand with his own kind of unique wisdom.

Paul McCartney, Uncut, July 2004 (via thateventuality)

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“Although there were four of us, there was one of us. All our hearts were beating at the same time.” - Ringo Starr

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Ringo would always say grammatically incorrect phrases and we’d all laugh. I remember when we were driving back to Liverpool from Luton up to M1 motorway in Ringo’s Zephyr, and the car’s bonnet hadn’t been latched properly. The wind got under it and blew it up in front of the windscreen. We were all shouting, ‘Aaaargh!’ and Ringo calmly said, 'Don’t worry, I’ll soon have you back in your safely-beds.’

George Harrison, The Beatles Anthology (via thateventuality)

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We are the only ones who really know each other. We know what it was like. They are the only two that don’t look at me like I’m a Beatle. They look at me like I’m a Ringo and I look at them like he’s a Paul, or he’s a George.

Ringo, in the Nineties (via thateventuality)

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Scan - The Beatles celebrating Ringo Starr’s 24th birthday, 1964. Scanned from The Beatles Forever.

“We started hanging out with them [Rory Storm and The Hurricanes, at the Kaiserkeller, Hamburg]. I think we’d met Ringo once before, in England. I know we all had the same impression about him: ‘You’d better be careful of him, he looks like trouble.’

[…] They would do their show and Ringo was the cocky one at the back; and with the way he looked, with that grey streak in his hair and half a grey eyebrow and a big nose, he looked a real tough guy. But it probably only took half an hour to realise it was actually… Ringo!” - George Harrison, The Beatles Anthology

“I was still a Teddy boy and I only found out later from John that they were a bit scared of me. John told me, 'We used to be a bit frightened of you - this drunk, demanding slow songs, dressed like a Teddy boy.’” - Ringo Starr, The Beatles Anthology

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Scan - Ringo, John and Paul, India, 1966, photograph by George

Photo: George Harrison

Scanned from Living in the Material World

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I had a group, I was the singer and the leader; I met Paul [McCartney] and I made a decision whether to - and he made a decision too - have him in the group: was it better to have a guy who was better than the people I had in, obviously, or not? To make the group stronger or to let me be stronger? That decision was to let Paul in and make the group stronger. Well, from that, Paul introduced me to George [Harrison], and Paul and I had to make the decision, or I had to make the decision, whether to let George in. I listened to George play, and I said 'Play Raunchy' or whatever the old story is, and I let him in. I said 'OK, you come in.' That was the three of us then.

John Lennon, The Beatles In Their Own Words

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The Quarrymen at Woolton Garden Fete, Liverpool, 6 July 1957. Photo by Geoff Rhind.

The following is from a letter by Paul McCartney to commemorate the fortieth anniversary of John and Paul’s first meeting in 1997; it's included in Len Garry’s book John, Paul & Me: Before The Beatles:

"Then, as you all know, he asked me to join the group, and so we began our trip together. We wrote our first songs together, we grew up together and we lived our lives together.

And when we’d do it together, something special would happen. There’d be a little magic spark.

I still remember his beery old breath when I met him here that day. But I soon came to love that beery old breath. And I loved John. I was and still am a great fan of John’s. We had a lot of fun together and I treasure all those beautiful memories." - Paul McCartney

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"Being A Short Diversion On The Dubious Origins Of Beatles" - published in Mersey Beat, July 1961

“John mentioned (probably with a groan) that people were always asking what it meant and how they’d thought of it, and Bill replied - with Mersey Beat in mind - ‘Why don’t you tell them?’

So John wrote the history of the Beatles, and because he and George were knocking around together, he was on hand to contribute. John had been happy to let Paul help him write a comic piece or two in 1958, notably 'On Safari With Whide Hunter’, now he allowed George to get involved in what became known as 'Being A Short Diversion On The Dubious Origins Of Beatles’.” - From The Beatles - All These Years: Tune In by Mark Lewisohn

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