British singer/songwriter (1940-1980)
That's part of our policy, is not to be taken seriously, because I think our opposition, whoever they may be, in all their manifest forms, don't know how to handle humor. You know, and we are humorous, we are, what are they, 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.
JOHN LENNON
BBC interview with David Wigg, May 8, 1969
There's room at the top I'm telling you still
but first you must learn how to smile as you kill
if you want to be like the folks on the hill.
JOHN LENNON
"Working Class Hero"
Everything is as important as everything else.
JOHN LENNON
The Beatles Anthology
We know how to behave! We've had lessons.
JOHN LENNON
A Hard Day's Night
Happiness is just how you feel when you don't feel miserable.
JOHN LENNON
The Beatles Anthology
I've always considered my work one piece and I consider that my work won't be finished until I am dead and buried and I hope that's a long, long time.
JOHN LENNON
interview with RKO Radio on the day of his murder, December 8, 1980
You should have gone west to America. You would have been a senior citizen of Boston. But you took a wrong turn, and what happened? You're a lonely old man from Liverpool.
JOHN LENNON
A Hard Day's Night
I really thought that love would save us all.
JOHN LENNON
attributed, The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 10, 1980
One has to completely humiliate oneself to be what the Beatles were, and that's what I resent. I didn't know, I didn't foresee. It happened bit by bit, gradually, until this complete craziness is surrounding you, and you're doing exactly what you don't want to do with people you can't stand -- the people you hated when you were ten.
JOHN LENNON
Rolling Stone, January 7, 1971
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.
JOHN LENNON
The Dick Cavett Show, September 24, 1971
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
JOHN LENNON
"All You Need Is Love"
My role in society, or any artist 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.
JOHN LENNON
interview, KFRC RKO Radio, December 8, 1980
The idea of beetles came into my head. I decided to spell it BEATles to make it look like beat music, just a joke.
JOHN LENNON
Life Magazine, September 13, 1968
Everyone deserves to believe they are beautiful.
JOHN LENNON
The Beatles Anthology
Leave a space and something will fill it.
JOHN LENNON
All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono
Children, Don't do what I have done
I couldn't walk so I tried to run
JOHN LENNON
"Mother"
I go to restaurants and the groups always play "Yesterday." I even signed a guy's violin in Spain after he played us "Yesterday." He couldn't understand that I didn't write the song. But I guess he couldn't have gone from table to table playing "I Am The Walrus."
JOHN LENNON
interview, Playboy, January 1981
Let me take you down, 'cause I'm going to Strawberry Fields
Nothing is real and nothing to get hung about
Strawberry Fields forever
JOHN LENNON
"Strawberry Fields Forever"
Sitting in an English garden waiting for the sun
If the sun don't come
You get a tan from standing in the English rain
JOHN LENNON
"I Am the Walrus"
People never grasp the fact that they're going to have to go through the same thing again. They get to the sort of five-year stretch or the seven-year itch or whatever these tension points are that seem to be organic, built in, like the tide coming in and going out. It's like every time the tide goes out you quit--you move your house or something.
JOHN LENNON
All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono