“None of would've made it alone" John once explained, "because Paul wasn't strong enough, I didn't have enough girl-appeal, George was too quiet, and Ringo was the drummer. But we thought everyone would be able to dig at least one of us, and that's how it turned out.”

“Dylan's friend Linus Millberg appears out of the crowd with a cup of beer and shouts, 'Dorothy is John Lennon, the Scarecrow is Paul McCartney, the Tin Woodman is George Harrison, the Lion's Ringo.''Star Trek,' commands Dylan over the lousy twangy country CB's is playing between sets.'Easy,' Linus shouts back. "Kirk's John, Spock's Paul, Bones is George, Scotty is Ringo. Or Chekov, after the first season. Doesn't matter, it's like a Scotty-Chekov-combination Ringo. Spare parts are always surplus Georges or Ringos.''But isn't Spock-lacks-a-heart and McCoy-lacks-a-brain like Woodman and Scarecrow? So Dorothy's Kirk?''You don't get it. That's just a superficial coincidence. The Beatle thing is an archetype, it's like the basic human formation. Everything naturally forms into a Beatles, people can't help it.''Say the types again.''Responsible-parent genius-parent genius-child clown-child.''Okay, do Star Wars.''Luke Paul, Han Solo John, Chewbacca George, the robots Ringo.''Tonight Show.''Uh, Johnny Carson Paul, the guest John, Ed McMahon Ringo, whatisname George.''Doc Severinson.''Yeah, right. See, everything revolves around John, even Paul. That's why John's the guest.''And Severinson's quiet but talented, like a Wookie.''You begin to understand.”

“We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”

“John was the ne'er-do-well father, Paul was the hardworking mother trying to keep everything together. George was a slightly surly teenager, and Ringo was this happy-go-lucky young kid with his model airplane. That's really how it was.”

“Anyway, the fascinating thing was that I read in National Geographic that there are more people alive now than have died in all of human history. In other words, if everyone wanted to play Hamlet at once, they couldn’t, because there aren’t enough skulls!”

“How did it die?" he asked."Short circuit," I said. "Old and frayed wires."He looked at me like I was senile."Could have been disease. Violence. Or, sometimes, things die because we don't love them enough.”

“I ripped the pages out of the book.I reversed the order, so the last one was first, and the first was last.When I flipped through them, it looked like the man was floating up through the sky.And if I'd had more pictures, he would've flown through a window, back into the building, and the smoke would've poured into the hole that the plane was about to come out of.Dad would've left his messages backward, until the machine was empty, and the plane would've flown backward away from him, all the way to Boston.He would've taken the elevator to the street and pressed the button for the top floor.He would've walked backward to the subway, and the subway would've gone backward through the tunnel, back to our stop.Dad would've gone backward through the turnstile, then swiped his Metrocard backward, then walked home backward as he read the New York Times from right to left.He would've spit coffee into his mug, unbrushed his teeth, and put hair on his face with a razor.He would've gotten back into bed, the alarm would've rung backward, he would've dreamt backward.Then he would've gotten up again at the end of the night before the worst day.He would've walked backward to my room, whistling 'I Am the Walrus' backward.He would've gotten into bed with me.We would've looked at the stars on my ceiling, which would've pulled back their light from our eyes.I'd have said 'Nothing' backward.He'd have said 'Yeah, buddy?' backward.I'd have said 'Dad?' backward, which would have sounded the same as 'Dad' forward.He would have told me the story of the Sixth Borough, from the voice in the can at the endto the beginning, from 'I love you' to 'Once upon a time.'We would have been safe.”