JOHN LENNON QUOTES III

British singer/songwriter (1940-1980)

John Lennon

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

JOHN LENNON

The Beatles Anthology

Tags: happiness


Think peace, live peace, and breathe peace and you'll get it as soon as you like. Okay?

JOHN LENNON

statement to the press, July 1969


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


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.

JOHN LENNON

interview, Playboy, September 1980


It's only sane to be insane
Psychotic builds a castle
And neurotic lives in it
I don't know what to do with my sanity
When the world's at the verge of calamity

JOHN LENNON & YOKO ONO

"O'Sanity"

Tags: sanity


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

Tags: The Beatles


Leave a space and something will fill it.

JOHN LENNON

All We Are Saying: The Last Major Interview with John Lennon and Yoko Ono


You have to be a bastard to make it, and that's a fact. And the Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth.

JOHN LENNON

attributed, Lennon Remembers


I really thought that love would save us all.

JOHN LENNON

attributed, The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 10, 1980

Tags: love


We know how to behave! We've had lessons.

JOHN LENNON

A Hard Day's Night


It's amazing how low you go to get high.

JOHN LENNON

"The Art of Deception is in the Eye of the Beholder", Skywriting by Word of Mouth


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.

JOHN LENNON

attributed, Beatles Illustrated Lyrics, vol. I


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

JOHN LENNON

"Across the Universe"

Tags: universe


Christ, you know it ain't easy
You know how hard it can be.
The way things are going,
they're going to crucify me.

JOHN LENNON

"Ballad of John and Yoko"


All we are saying is give peace a chance!

JOHN LENNON

"Give Peace a Chance"

Tags: peace


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


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

Tags: artists


Children, Don't do what I have done
I couldn't walk so I tried to run

JOHN LENNON

"Mother"


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

Tags: drugs


What's Bagism? It's like... a tag for what we all do, we're all in a bag ya know, and we realised that we came from two bags, I was in this pop bag going round and round in my little clique, and she was in her little avant-garde clique going round and round, and you're in your little tele clique and they're in their...ya know? and we all sort of come out and look at each other every now and then, but we don't communicate. And we all intellectualize about how there is no barrier between art, music, poetry... but we're still all "I'm a rock and roller, he's a poet" ... so we just came up with the word so you would ask us what bagism is, and we'd say "WE'RE ALL IN A BAG BABY!"

JOHN LENNON

interview, The David Frost Show, June 14, 1969