“I saw their mouths going up and down without a sound, as if they were sitting on the deck of a departing ship, stranding me in the middle of a huge silence.”

“Maybe I can put it another way... Life, Charlie Brown, is like a deck chair.""Like a what?""Have you ever been on a cruise ship? Passengers open up these canvas deck chairs so they can sit in the sun... Some people place their chairs facing the rear of the ship so they can see where they've been... Other people face their chairs forward... They want to see where they're going! On the cruise ship of life, Charlie Brown, which way is your deck chair facing?""I've never been able to get one unfolded...”

“When he marched to the altar, all the women in smart hats leaned away from the aisle, their long strands of pearls all swaying to one side as if the deck of a ship listed beneath them.”

“They were slowing down. The noise of the rope as they reached the full extent of the jump sounded like the ricochet crack of the sail on a tall ship. And now they were accelerating again, up, up and suddenly they were hanging suspended: weightless in space. No up or down. The feeling of disorientation absolute.”

“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 felt as if I were sitting in the window of an enormous department store. The figures around me weren't people, but shop dummies, painted to resemble people and propped up in attitudes counterfeiting life.”