John Lennon (1940 – 1980)
Born John Winston Lennon, was a singer, songwriter, guitarist, political activist, humorist, painter, writer and founding member of The Beatles.
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.
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."
For the benefit of Mr. Kite
there will be a show tonight on trampoline.
How can I give love when I don't know what it is I'm giving?
There are no problems, only solutions.
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'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.
So keep on playing those mind games together
Doing the ritual dance in the sun.
Millions of mind guerrillas
Putting their soul power to the karmic wheel.
They keep you doped with religion and sex and TV,
And you think you're so clever, and classless and free,
But you're still fucking peasants as far as I can see.
We announce the birth of a conceptual country, NUTOPIA.
Citizenship of the country can be obtained by declaration of your awareness of NUTOPIA.
NUTOPIA has no land, no boundaries, no passports, only people.
NUTOPIA has no laws other than cosmic.
All people of NUTOPIA are ambassadors of the country.
As two ambassadors of NUTOPIA, we ask for diplomatic immunity and recognition in the United Nations of our country and our people.
You say you want a Revolution; you better get it on right away.
Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.
I suppose if I had said television was more popular than Jesus, I would have gotten away with it. I'm sorry I opened my mouth. I'm not anti-God, anti-Christ, or anti-religion. I wasn't knocking it or putting it down. I was just saying it as a fact and it's true more for England than here. I'm not saying that we're better or greater, or comparing us with Jesus Christ as a person or God as a thing or whatever it is. I just said what I said and it was wrong. Or it was taken wrong. And now it's all this.
If people take any notice of what we say, we say we've been through the drug scene, man, and there's nothing like being straight.
I know you understand the little child inside of your man.
I don't believe in Elvis
I don't believe in Zimmerman
I don't believe in Beatles.
I just believe in me
Yoko and me
And that's reality.
John Lennon was many things to many people. A poet, a rocker, a leader, a troublemaker, a father, a husband — a man. Growing up, to me, he was a hero. The work of John Lennon was marked by its exquisite beauty and by its brutal honesty. So in that vein, let me say, that while I'm both deeply honored to be here — I'm also incredibly pissed-off. I'm outraged because this passionate prophet of peace, and so many others, are not with us here — because we live in an all-too-violent world. And so in the spirit of this occasion it is up to all of us, to do what we can, not only to keep John's songs alive, but help rebuild New York — and that includes your host...
I wouldn't say I was a born writer; I'm a born thinker.
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.