There's no such thing as sculpture or art or anything, it's just a bit of - it's just words, you know, and actually saying everything is art. We're all art, art is just a tag, like a journalists' tag, but artists believe it.
John LennonBefore Cliff (Richard) and The Shadows, there had been nothing worth listening to in British music.
John LennonIt was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You'd wake up in a concert and think, Wow, how did I get here?
John LennonIn Western-style Communism we would have to create an almost imaginary workers' image of themselves as the father-figure.
John LennonIt came in a vision - a man appeared on a flaming pie and said unto them, 'From this day forward you are Beatles with an A.' Thank you Mister Man, they said, thanking him.
John LennonThe establishment will irritate you - pull your beard, flick your face - to make you fight. Because once they've got you violent, then they know how to handle you. The only thing they don't know how to handle is non-violence and humor.
John LennonI'm a moldy moldy man I'm moldy thru and thru I'm a moldy moldy man You would not think it true I'm moldy til my eyeballs I'm moldy til my toe I will not dance I shyballs I'm such a humble Joe.
John LennonIn Baby You're A Rich Man the point was, stop moaning, you're a rich man and we're all rich, heh heh, baby!
John LennonWhen 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.
John LennonI can't speak for George, but I pretty damn well know we got fed up of being sidemen for Paul.
John LennonAs in a love affair, two creative people can destroy themselves trying to recapture that youthful spirit, at twenty-one or twenty-four, of creating without even being aware of how it's happening
John LennonThere 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.
John LennonThese 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.
John LennonLots 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.
John LennonYoko [Ono] was well into liberation before I met her. She'd had to fight her way through a man's world - the art world is completely dominated by men - so she was full of revolutionary zeal when we met.
John LennonI am not the Beatles. I'm me. Paul isn't the Beatles...The Beatles are the Beatles. Separately, they are separate.
John LennonThe main hangup in the world today is hypocrisy and insecurity. If people can't face up to the fact of other people being naked or smoking pot, or whatever they want to do, then we're never going to get anywhere. People have got to become aware that it's none of their business and that being nude is not obscene. Being ourselves is what's important. If everyone practiced being themselves instead of pretending to be what they aren't, there would be peace.
John LennonMy father and mother split and I never saw my father until I was 20, nor did I see much more of my mother.
John LennonI regret profoundly that I was not an American and not born in Greenwich Village. It might be dying, and there might be a lot of dirt in the air you breathe, but this is where it's happening.
John LennonI just sat all night looking at him, saying, 'Wow, it's incredible.' When Yoko woke up, I told her, 'He's fine,' and we cried.
John LennonI've always been politically minded and against the status quo. It's pretty basic when you're brought up, like I was, to hate and fear the police as a natural enemy and to despise the army as something that takes everybody away and leaves them dead somewhere.
John LennonAnd 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.
John LennonI only ever asked two people to work with me as a partner. One was Paul McCartney and the other Yoko Ono. Paul and me were the Beatles.
John LennonI'm cynical about society, politics, newspapers, government. But I'm not cynical about life, love, goodness, death. That's why I really don't want to be labeled a cynic.
John LennonAs someone from the working class I was always interested in Russia and China and everything that related to the working class, even though I was playing the capitalist game.
John Lennon