Solid advice. I had to rewrite a ton of my last book for this reason. The kind-of ironic part here is that, esp. for self-published writers, the average sale of a novel might be just a few hundred copies — meaning that the chances anyone would see the work and sue you are *practically* zero. That doesn’t mean anyone should ignore the advice you’re giving here, of course. It’s just a little sad. I wrote off to several big-name artists trying to get permission, but got zero response. In the end, it was easier to just revise than chance it, for me. Imagine the hassle that would have to be gone through, esp. for a small self-published novel, to secure permission to quote a Beatles song. You could probably write a whole other novel w/ all of the effort that would take (and then you sell 200 copies… lol).