John Lennon quotes:

I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?

We've got this gift of love, but 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 watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it.

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we're being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I'm liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That's what's insane about it.

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.

Rituals are important. Nowadays it's hip not to be married. I'm not interested in being hip.

If someone thinks that love and peace is a cliche that must have been left behind in the Sixties, that's his problem. Love and peace are eternal.

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.

He didn't come out of my belly, but my God, I've made his bones, because I've attended to every meal, and how he sleeps, and the fact that he swims like a fish because I took him to the ocean. I'm so proud of all those things. But he is my biggest pride.

If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it 'Chuck Berry'.

Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans.

Yeah we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun.

Lots of people who complained about us receiving the MBE received theirs for heroism in the war - for killing people. We received ours for entertaining other people. I'd say we deserve ours more.

Love is the flower you've got to let grow.

Guilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn't enough and you have to go and get shot or something.

It doesn't matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I'm a woman or a man.

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

Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry.

All we are saying is give peace a chance.

Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.

Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it.

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.

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

All you need is love.

Everything is clearer when you're in love.

Love is the answer, and you know that for sure; Love is a flower, you've got to let it grow.

If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that... I believe in what I do, and I'll say it.

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

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

War is over ... If you want it.

War is over If you want it.

We all shine on...like the moon and the stars and the sun...we all shine on...come on and on and on..."

Yeah we all shine on, like the moon, and the stars, and the sun."

The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn't the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.

We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create

The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort? Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurized, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?

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.

Limitless undying love which shines around me like a million suns it calls me on and on across the universe.

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes They call me on and on across the universe Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box They tumble blindly as they make their way across the universe

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

Count your age by friends, not years. Count your life by smiles, not tears.

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

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.

And So This Is Christmas; And What Have We Done? Another Year Over; A New One Just Begun; And So Happy Christmas; I Hope You Have Fun; The Near And The Dear Ones; The Old And The Young.

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.

People asking questions, lost in confusion, well I tell them there's no problem, only solutions.

If the masses started to accept UFOs, it would profoundly affect their attitude towards life, politics, everything. It would threaten the status quo. Whenever people come to realize that there are larger considerations than their own petty lives, they are ripe to make radical changes on a personal level, which would eventually lead to a political revolution in society as a whole

I used to say to my auntie, 'You throw my fu*kin' poetry out, and you'll regret it when I'm famous,' and she threw the bast*rd stuff out. I never forgave her for not treating me like a fu*kin' genius or whatever I was when I was a child.

Avant-garde is French for bullshit

All music is rehash. There are only a few notes. Just variations on a theme. Try to tell the kids in the Seventies who were screaming to the Bee Gees that their music was just The Beatles redone. There is nothing wrong with the Bee Gees.

The pressures of being a parent are equal to any pressure on earth. To be a conscious parent, and really look to that little being's mental and physical health, is a responsibility which most of us, including me, avoid most of the time because it's too hard.

If I had the capabilities of being something other than I am, I would. It's no fun being an artist. You know what it's like, writing, it's torture.

It's weird not to be weird.

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

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.

It depends who they are. If it's Mick (Jagger) or the Old Guard as I call them, yeah, they're the Old Guard. Elton (John), David (Bowie) are the newies. I don't feel like an old uncle, dear, 'cause I'm not that much older than half of 'em, hehe.

Love is a promise, love is a souvenir, once given never forgotten, never let it disappear.

I've had the boyhood thing of being Elvis. Now I want to be with my best friend and my best friend is my wife. Who could ask for anything more?

In England, there are only two things to be, basically: You are either for the labor movement or for the capitalist movement. Either you become a right-wing Archie Bunker if you are in the class I am in, or you become an instinctive socialist, which I was.

Everybody's talking about ministers, sinisters, banisters, and canisters, bishops, fishops, rabbis, and popeyes, bye-bye, bye-byes.

The postman wants an autograph. The cab driver wants a picture. The waitress wants a handshake. Everyone wants a piece of you.

We're crazy about this city. Los Angeles? That's just a big parking lot where you buy a hamburger for the trip to San Francisco.

If we took over Britain, then we'd have the job of cleaning up the bourgeoisie and keeping people in a revolutionary state of mind.

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.

It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You'd wake up in a concert and think, Wow, how did I get here?

I mean we [The Beatles] had to go through humiliation upon humiliation with the middle classes and showbiz and Lord Mayors and all that. They were so condescending and stupid. Everybody trying to use us. It was a special humiliation for me because I could never keep my mouth shut and I'd always have to be drunk or pilled to counteract this pressure. It was really hell .

I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything. I've always been a freak. So I've been a freak all my life and I have to live with that, you know. I'm one of those people.

I'm not going to change the way I look or the way I feel to conform to anything.

We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow's nest of that ship.

We live in a world where we have to hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

After the revolution you have the problem of keeping things going, of sorting out all the different views. It's quite natural that revolutionaries should have different solutions, that they should split into different groups and then reform, that's the dialectic, isn't it - but at the same time they need to be united against the enemy, to solidify a new order.

I learned lots of dirty jokes very young. There was this girl who told me them. The gang I led went in for shoplifting and pulling girls' knickers down. Other boys' parents hated me.

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

Imagine all the people living life in peace. You may say I'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one. I hope someday you'll join us, and the world will be as one.

You may say i'm a dreamer, but I'm not the only one

Nothing happened in the sixties except that we all dressed up.

When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream.

We all been playing those mind games forever Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil. Doing the mind guerrilla, Some call it magic - the search for the grail. Love is the answer and you know that for sure. Love is a flower, you got to let it - you got to let it grow.

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

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.

When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps.

I'm a freakin' artist, man, not a (expletive) race horse.

It seems that all revolutions end up with a personality cult - even the Chinese seem to need a father-figure.

In Western-style Communism we would have to create an almost imaginary workers' image of themselves as the father-figure.

But for me at any rate it was all part of dissolving the God trip or father-figure trip. Facing up to reality instead of always looking for some kind of heaven.

It's fear of the unknown. The unknown is what it is. And to be frightened of it is what sends everybody scurrying around chasing dreams, illusions, wars, peace, love, hate, all that-it's all illusion. Unknown is what it is. Accept that it's unknown and it's plain sailing. Everything is unknown-then you're ahead of the game. That's what it is. Right?

I was feeling insecure you might not love me anymore

Love means having to say you're sorry every fifteen minutes.

I just like TV. I think to me, it replaced the fireplace when I was a child. They took the fire away and they put a TV in instead and I got hooked on it.

I've never met anybody who's had a flashback in my life and I took millions of trips in the Sixties, and I've never met anybody who had any problem. I've had bad trips, but I've had bad trips in real life. I've had a bad trip on a joint. I can get paranoid just sitting in a restaurant; I don't have to take anything.

I've withdrawn many times. Part of me is a monk, and part a performing flea! The fear in the music business is that you don't exist if you're not at Xenon with Andy Warhol.

Sometimes you wonder, I mean really wonder. I know we make our own reality, and we always have a choice, but how much is preordained? Is there always a fork in the road, and are there two preordained paths that are equally preordained? There could be hundreds of paths where one could go this way or that way -- there's a chance, and it's very strange sometimes.

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

I never listen to the radio. If it's bad, I make fun of it, and if it's good, I get jealous that I didn't think of it.

I think it's false, shallow, to be giving to others when your own need is great. The idea is not to comfort people, not to make them feel better but to make them feel worse, to constantly put before them the degradations and humiliations they go through to get what they call a living wage.

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.

And God help Bruce Springsteen when they decide he's no longer God... They'll turn on him, and I hope he survives it.

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock and roll or Christianity.

As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.

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

I recently got into Haiku in Japan and I just think it's fantastic. Obviously, when you get rid of a whole section of illusion in your mind you're left with great precision.

Yoko [Ono] was showing me some of these Haiku in the original. The difference between them and Long fellow is immense. Instead of a long flowery poem the Haiku would say 'Yellow flower in white bowl on wooden table' which gives you the whole picture.

Laurel and Hardy, that's John and Yoko. And we stand a better chance under that guise because all the serious people like Martin Luther King and Kennedy and Gandhi got shot.

Imagine there's no heaven... it's easy if you try.

I never went to high school reunions. My thing is, out of sight, out of mind. That's my attitude toward life. So I don't have any romanticism about any part of my past.

Imagine no possesions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people Sharing all the world.

Happiness is just how you feel when you don't feel miserable.

I believe in everything until it's disproved.

I know I hurt you then But that was way back when.

I thought I was painting in sound a picture of revolution - but I made a mistake, you know. The mistake was that it was anti-revolution.

I still believe in peace, love, and understanding.

Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn't insanity. Surrealism to me is reality.

Imagine all the people living life in peace...

Imagine there's no countries It isn't hard to do Nothing to kill or die for And no religion too Imagine all the people Living life in peace...

I don't purchase records. I do enjoy listening to things like Japanese folk music or Indian music.

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives

Work is life, you know, and without it, there's nothing but fear and insecurity.

You can go to church and sing a hymn, Judge me by the colour of my skin, You can live a lie until you die, One thing you can't hide is when you're crippled inside.

if everyone could just be happy with themselves and the choices people around them make, the world would instantly be a better place!

I don't believe in Beatles, I just believe in me.