John Lennon (1940 – 1980)
Born John Winston Lennon, was a singer, songwriter, guitarist, political activist, humorist, painter, writer and founding member of The Beatles.
There's nothing you can do that can't be done
Nothing you can sing that can't be sung
Nothing you can say but you can learn how to play the game
It's easy.
There's only one person in the United States we ever wanted to meet ... not that he wanted us. And we met him last night. We can't tell you how we felt. We just idolised him so much. ... You can't imagine what a thrill that was last night. Nothing really affected me until I heard Elvis. If there hadn't been an Elvis, there wouldn't have been the Beatles.
It takes time to get rid of all this garbage that I've been carrying around that was influencing the way I thought and the way I lived. It had a lot to do with Yoko, showing me that I was still possessed. I left physically when I fell in love with Yoko, but mentally it took the last ten years of struggling. I learned everything from her. ... It is a teacher-pupil relationship. That's what people don't understand. She's the teacher and I'm the pupil. I'm the famous one, the one who's supposed to know everything, but she's my teacher. She's taught me everything I fucking know. She's my Don Juan ... a Don Juan doesn't have a following. A Don Juan isn't in the newspaper and doesn't have disciples and doesn't proselytize.
There are no problems, only solutions.
How can I give love when I don't know what it is I'm giving?
For the benefit of Mr. Kite
there will be a show tonight on trampoline.
These critics with the illusions they've created about artists — it's like idol worship. They only like people when they're on their way up ... I cannot be on the way up again. ... What they want is dead heroes, like Sid Vicious and James Dean. I'm not interesting in being a dead (expletive) hero. ... So forget 'em, forget 'em."
Woman, please let me explain
I never meant to cause you sorrow or pain
So let me tell you again and again and again...
I love you
Now and forever.
He must have been a gardener that cared a lot,
Who weeded out the tears and grew a good crop;
But now it all looks strange, it's funny how one insect
Can damage so much grain.
You say you want a revolution,
Well, you know, we all want to change the world...
But when you talk about destruction,
Don't you know that you can count me out.
Imagine there's no countries,
It isnt hard to do,
Nothing to kill or die for,
No religion too,
Imagine all the people
living life in peace...
When I was about twelve, I used to think I must be a genius, but nobody's noticed. Either I'm a genius or I'm mad, which is it? "No," I said, "I can't be mad because nobody's put me away; therefore I'm a genius." Genius is a form of madness and we're all that way. But I used to be coy about it, like me guitar playing. But if there's such a thing as genius — I am one. And if there isn't, I don't care.
"Love is a promise, love is a souvenir, once given never forgotten, never let it disappear." — frequently attributed to Lennon, but entirely unsourced
Nor do I think we came from monkeys, by the way...That's another piece of garbage. What the hell's it based on? We couldn't've come from anything--fish, maybe, but not monkeys. I don't believe in the evolution of fish to monkeys to men. Why aren't monkeys changing into men now? It's absolute garbage. It's absolutely irrational garbage, as mad as the ones who believe the world was made only four thousand years ago, the fundamentalists.
That and the monkey thing are both as insane as the other. I’ve nothing to base it on; it’s only a gut feeling. They always draw that progression-these apes standing up suddenly. The early men are always drawn like apes, right? Because that fits in the theory we have been living with since Darwin.
Mother, you had me, but I never had you.
I think a label like "avant-garde" defeats itself. You learn to have avant-garde exhibitions. The very fact that avant-garde can have an exhibition defeats the purpose of avant-garde, because it's already formalised and ritualised.
When I cannot sing my heart, I can only speak my mind.
Half of what I say is meaningless
But I say it just to reach you
Julia.
We never made love in a bag. People probably imagined that we were making love. It was just, all of us are in a bag, you know. The point was the outline of the bag, you know, the movement of the bag, how much we see of a person, you know. But, inside, there might be a lot going on. Or maybe nothing's going on.