Top 628 Quotes & Sayings by John Lennon - Page 4

There is an alternative to war. It's staying in bed and growing your hair.

When I was 5 years old, my mother always told me that happiness was the key to life.

There are a lot of people walking around with long hair now and some trendy middle class kids in pretty clothes. But nothing changed except that we all dressed up a bit, leaving the same bastards running everything.

You don't have to be a star to get a cheese sandwich. You just have to be first.

When I went to school, they asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. I wrote down happy.

All I want is the truth, just give me some truth

All of us growing up have come to terms with too much pain. Although we repress it, it's still there. The worst pain is that of not being wanted, of realising your parents do not need you in the way you need them.

It's alright all of us all living saying 'oh well there's enough of us so we won't have anymore, don't let anybody else live.' I don't believe in that.

I put things down on sheets of paper and stuff them in my pockets. When I have enough, I have a book.

The magic of the music seems to light the way.

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

When somebody is angry with us, we draw a halo around his or her head, in our minds. Does the person stop being angry then? Well, we don't know! We know, though, that when we draw a halo around a person, suddenly the person starts to look like an angel to us.

I am like a chameleon, influenced by whatever's going on. If Elvis can do it, I can do it. If the Everly Brothers can do it, me and Paul can. Same with Dylan.

Imagine ... Imagine no religion.

I was feeling insecure you might not love me anymore

I'm not claiming divinity. I've never claimed purity of soul. I've never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can. But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

As a kid I had a dream - I wanted to own my own bicycle. When I got the bike I must have been the happiest boy in Liverpool, maybe the world. I lived for that bike. Most kids left their bike in the backyard at night. Not me. I insisted on taking mine indoors and the first night I even kept it in my bed.

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.

Imagine no possessions; I wonder if you can.

I'll probably be popped off by some loony.

I'm not really a career person; I'm a gardener, basically.

Keep you doped with religion and sex and TV

Your inside is out and your outside is in.

The first line (of I Am The Walrus) was written on one acid trip one weekend. The second line was written on the next acid trip the next weekend, and it was filled in after I met Yoko.

The best things in life are free, but you can keep them for the birds and bees; I want money.

Well, I don't want to be king, I want to be real.

Nothing will stop me, and whether I'm here or wherever I may be, I'll always have the same feelings, I'll say what I feel.

Mostly folk music is people with fruity voices trying to keep alive something old and dead. It's all a bit boring, like ballet: a minority thing kept going by a minority group.

We're trying to sell peace, like a product, you know, and sell it like people sell soap or soft drinks. And it's the only way to get people aware that peace is possible, and it isn't just inevitable to have violence. Not just war - all forms of violence.

Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It's like being possessed.

Surrealism to me is reality. Psychedelic vision is reality to me and always was.

Mahatma Gandhi and Martin Luther King are great examples of fantastic nonviolents who died violently. I can never work that out. We're pacifists, but I'm not sure what it means when you're such a pacifist that you get shot. I can never understand that.

I don't intend to be a performing flea any more. I was the dreamweaver, but although I'll be around I don't intend to be running at 20,000 miles an hour trying to prove myself. I don't want to die at 40.

The dream is over. I gotta get down to reality. The good old days is garbage.

It's just natural, it's not a great disaster. People keep talking about it like it's The End of The Earth. It's only a rock group that split up, it's nothing important. You know, you have all the old records there if you want to reminisce.

Newspaper people have a habit of putting you in the front pages to sell their papers, and then after they've sold their papers and got big circulations, they say, 'Look at what we've done for you

There's high, and then there's high, and to get really high--I mean so high that you can walk on the water, that high--that's where I'm goin'

My life with the Beatles had become a trap... I always remember to thank Jesus for the end of my touring days; if I hadn't said that the Beatles were 'bigger than Jesus' and upset the very Christian Ku Klux Klan, well, Lord, I might still be up there with all the other performing fleas! God bless America. Thank you, Jesus.

When you wake up and your heart is going like the clappers or your back feels strained, or you develop some other hang-up, you should let your mind go to the pain and the pain itself will regurgitate the memory which originally caused you to suppress it in your body. In this way the pain goes to the right channel instead of being repressed again, as it is if you take a pill or a bath, saying 'Well, I'll get over it'. Most people channel their pain into God or masturbation or some dream of making it.

I'd never met a woman I considered as intelligent as me. That sounds bigheaded, but every woman I met was either a dolly-chick, or a sort of screwed-up intellectual chick. And of course, in the field I was in, I didn't meet many intellectual people anyway. I always had this dream of meeting an artist, an artist girl who would be like me. And I thought it was a myth, but then I met Yoko and that was it.

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 believe Jesus was right, Buddha was right, and all of those people like that are right. They're all saying the same thing -? and I believe it. I believe what Jesus actually said -? the basic things he laid down about love and goodness -? and not what people say he said.

At Shea Stadium, I saw the top of the mountain.

Half of what I say is meaningless, but I say it just to reach you.

The world went mad and used us as an excuse.

Ringo is Ringo, that's all there is to it. And he's every bloody bit as warm, unassuming, funny and kind as he seems. He was quite simply the heart of the Beatles

[Polythene Pam] was me, remembering a little event with a woman in Jersey, and a man who was England's answer to Allen Ginsberg, who gave us our first exposure - this is so long - you can't deal with all this. You see, everything triggers amazing memories. I met him when we were on tour and he took me back to his apartment and I had a girl and he had one he wanted me to meet. He said she dressed up in polythene, which she did. She didn't wear jackboots and kilts, I just sort of elaborated. Perverted sex in a polythene bag. Just looking for something to write about.

When I started, rock and roll itself was the basic revolution to people of my age and situation. We needed something loud and clear to break through all the unfeeling and repression that had been coming down on us kids.

I was different, I was always different. Why didn't anybody notice me?

I don't know how much money I've got. I did ask the accountant how much it came to. I wrote it down on a bit of paper. But I've lost the bit of paper.

Please don’t spoil my day; I’m miles away and, after all, I’m only sleeping.

Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life.

All kids draw and write poetry and everything, and some of us last until we're about eighteen, but most drop off at about twelve when some guy comes up and says, "You're no good." That's all we get told all our lives. "You haven't got the ability. You're a cobbler." It happened to all of us, but if somebody had told me all my life, "Yeah, you're a great artist," I would have been a more secure person.

What we’ve got to do is keep hope alive. Because without it we’ll sink.

A working class hero is something to be.

I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence.

It looks like I'm going to be 40 and life begins at 40 -? so they promise. And I believe it, too.

In Paris in 1964 was the first time I ever heard Dylan at all. Paul got the record (The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan) from a French DJ. For three weeks in Paris we didn't stop playing it. We all went potty about Dylan.

You're only awake when you realise you're awake and when you're dreaming, it is just as real, whatever happens is just as real - whether you actually do die in a dream or fulfil whatever you're doing in a dream, it's, there's nobody to tell me it isn't as real as this now, because how do you know?

Imagine all the people Sharing all the world.