John Lennon

“paranoia is just a heightened sense of awareness”

“I wanna hold your gland.”

“It's weird not to be weird.”

“People like me are aware of their so-called genius at ten, eight, nine. . . . I always wondered, ``Why has nobody discovered me?'' In school, didn't they see that I'm cleverer than anybody in this school? That the teachers are stupid, too? That all they had was information that I didn't need? I got fuckin' lost in being at high school. I used to say to me auntie ``You throw my fuckin' poetry out, and you'll regret it when I'm famous, '' and she threw the bastard stuff out. I never forgave her for not treating me like a fuckin' genius or whatever I was, when I was a child. It was obvious to me. Why didn't they put me in art school? Why didn't they train me? Why would they keep forcing me to be a fuckin' cowboy like the rest of them? I was different I was always different. Why didn't anybody notice me? A couple of teachers would notice me, encourage me to be something or other, to draw or to paint - express myself. But most of the time they were trying to beat me into being a fuckin' dentist or a teacher”

“When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life. When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down ‘happy’. They told me I didn’t understand the assignment, and I told them they didn’t understand life.”

“Make love, not war.”

“rain, I don't mind”

“Pools of sorrow waves of joy are drifting thorough my open mind possessing and caressing m”

“I was feeling insecure you might not love me anymore”

“When I cannot sing my heart, I can only speak my mind.”

“Give us a kiss”

“I'm not going to sacrifice love, real love, for any *%@$n' war or any friend, or any business, because in the end you're alone at night.”

“When I hold you in my arms and I feel my finger on your trigger I know no one can do me no harm because happiness is a warm gun.”

“Love is the greatest refreshment in life.”

“How can I go forward when I don't know which way I'm facing?”

“I would like to say thank you on behalf of the group and ourselves and I hope we’ve passed the audition.”

“Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives”

“I've never really been wanted.”

“But I can be alone without Yoko, but I just have no wish to be. There’s no reason on earth why I should be alone without Yoko. There’s nothing more important than our relationship, nothing. And we dig being together all the time. Both of us could survive apart but what for? I’m not going to sacrifice love, real love for any whore or any friend or any business, because in the end you’re alone at night and neither of us want to be. And you can’t fill a bed with groupies. It doesn’t work. I don’t want to be a swinger. I’ve been through it all and nothing works better than to have someone you love hold you.”

“It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love or how you love, it matters only that you love”

“Love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep on watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it.”

“There's nothing you can do that can't be doneNothing you can sing that can't be sung. Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game. It's easy.Nothing you can make that can't be made. No one you can save that can't be saved. Nothing you can do but you can learn how to be you in time. It's easy.Nothing you can know that isn't known. Nothing you can see that isn't shown. Nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be. It's easy.”

“Everybody loves you when you're six foot in the ground.”

“Music is everybody's business. It's only the publishers who think people own it”

“Avant-garde is French for bullshit”

“Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

“Part of me suspects that I'm a loser, and the other part of me thinks I'm God Almighty.”

“It came in a vision - a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them, 'From this day forward you are Beatles with an A.' Thank you Mister Man, they said, thanking him.”

“I used to think that the world was doing something to me, that the world owed me something. And that either the conservatives or the socialists or the fascists or the communists or the Christians or the Jews or the fascists were doing something to me. And when you're a teeny-booper, that's what you think. I'm 40 now, I don't think that anymore—because I found out it doesn't fucking work. I am part of them. There's no separation. Were all one. "Give peace a chance," not "Shoot people for peace." "All you need is love." I believe it. It's damn hard, but I absolutely believe it.”

“The more real you get the more unreal the world gets. ”

“…Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I don't know what will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity. We're more popular than Jesus now. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.”

“When you cross the street, take my hand”

“You have to be a bastard to make it, and that's a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.”

“You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!”

“I'm not afraid of death because I don't believe in it.It's just getting out of one car, and into another.”

“Nobody loves you when you're down and out.”

“Without Jimmy (James) Dean the Beatles would never have existed.”

“I wasn't saying whatever they're saying I was saying. I'm sorry I said it really. I never meant it to be a lousy anti-religious thing. I apologize if that will make you happy. I still don't know quite what I've done. I've tried to tell you what I did do but if you want me to apologize, if that will make you happy, then OK, I'm sorry.”

“So long ago, was it in a dream, was it just a dream?”

“There are no problems, only solutions.”

“Imagine there's no countriesIt isn't hard to doNothing to kill or die forAnd no religion tooImagine all the peopleLiving life in peaceYou may say that I'm a dreamerBut I'm not the only oneI hope someday you'll join usAnd the world will be as one”

“Man, you should have seen them kicking Edgar Allan Poe.”

“Everything is clearer when you're in love.”

“I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong.”

“Make your own dream.That's the Beatles' story, isn't it? That's Yoko's story, that's what I'm saying now. Produce your own dream. If you want to save Peru, go save Peru. It's quite possible to do anything, but not to put it on the leaders and the parking meters. Don't expect Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus Christ to come and do it for you. You have to do it yourself.That's what the great masters and mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various books that are now called holy and worshipped for the cover of the book and not for what it says, but the instructions are all there for all to see, have always been and always will be.There's nothing new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it for you. I can't wake you up. You can wake you up. I can't cure you. You can cure you.”

“Love is a flower you got to let it grow.”

“My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.”

“My defenses were so great. The cocky rock and roll hero who knows all the answers was actually a terrified guy who didn't know how to cry. Simple.”

“When you're drowning you don't think, I would be incredibly pleased if someone would notice I'm drowning and come and rescue me. You just scream.”

“There are places I'll rememberAll my life though some have changedSome forever not for betterSome have gone and some remainAll these places have their momentsWith lovers and friends I still can recallSome are dead and some are livingIn my life I've loved them all”