John Lennon on Leaving the Beatles

"Well, I said to Paul, 'I'm leaving.' We were in Apple, and . . . I knew before we went to Toronto. I told Allen [Klein] I was leaving, I told Eric Clapton and Klaus [Voormann] that I was leaving and that I'd like to probably use them as a group. I hadn't decided how to do it -- to have a permanent new group or what, then later on I thought, fuck, I'm not going to get stuck with another set of people around me on the way to Toronto a few days before. And on the plane, Allen came to me, and I told Allen it's over. When I got back there were a few meetings and Allen had said, 'Well, cool it, cool it,' 'cause there was a lot to do business-wise, you know, and it would not have been suitable at the time.

"And then we were discussing something in the office with Paul and Paul said something or other like we ought to do something and I kept saying no, no, no to everything he said, you see. So it came to a point I had to say something, of course, and Paul said, 'What do you mean?' I said, 'I mean the group is over. I'm leaving.'

"Allen was saying don't tell. He didn't want me to tell Paul even. Well, I couldn't help it, so I said it out, I couldn't stop it, it came out. Paul and Allen said they were glad that I wasn't going to announce it. Like I was going to make an event out of it. But Paul and Allen both . . . I don't know whether Paul said don't tell anybody but he was damn pleased that I wasn't, you know. He said, 'Oh, well, that means nothing really happened if you're not going to say anything.'

"So, like anybody when you say divorce, you know, their face goes all sorts of colours. It's like he knew, really, that this was the final thing. And then six months later he comes out with whatever. A lot of people knew I left. I was a fool not to do it, not to do what Paul did, which was use it to sell a record."
-1970