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 humour.

We've learned over the years that if we wanted we could write anything that just felt good or sounded good and it didn't necessarily have to have any particular meaning to us. As odd as it seemed to us, reviewers would take it upon themselves to interject their own meanings on our lyrics. Sometimes we sit and read other people's interpretations of our lyrics and think, 'Hey, that's pretty good.' If we liked it, we would keep our mouths shut and just accept the credit as if it was what we meant all along.

I think middle-class people have the biggest trauma if they have nice imagey parents, all smiling and dolled up.

Life is what happens to you while you're planning on doing something else.

There is no denying that we are still living in the capitalist world. I think that in order to survive and to change the world, you have to take care of yourself first. You have to survive yourself.

News conference in Chicago, where he apologized for the above statement, which was accepted by the Vatican. (11 August 1966)

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