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


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


God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

JOHN LENNON

"God"

Tags: God


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"


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

Tags: humor


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.

JOHN LENNON

interview, Rolling Stone, 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


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"


Everything is as important as everything else.

JOHN LENNON

The Beatles Anthology


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


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


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


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"


Everyone deserves to believe they are beautiful.

JOHN LENNON

The Beatles Anthology

Tags: beauty


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.

JOHN LENNON

"What Can I Tell You about Myself which You Have Not Already Found Out from Those Who Do Not Lie?", The Beatles Anthology

Tags: society


Mother, you had me, but I never had you.

JOHN LENNON

"Mother"


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


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


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


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.

JOHN LENNON

Life Magazine, September 13, 1968