John Lennon Thinking Quotations

It was like being in the eye of a hurricane. You'd wake up in a concert and think, Wow, how did I get here?

Part of me suspects that I'm a loser, and the other part of me thinks I'm God Almighty.

As a child I did a lot of imaginary bits, you know. It depends on the individual, I enjoyed then knocking the nail in, I enjoy knocking nails in walls to hang pictures up, but I also enjoy thinking 'I'm gonna do that' but I actually won't do it, I enjoy imagining doing things just as much.

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

Of course it's difficult to know what the workers are really thinking because the capitalist press always only quotes mouthpieces like Vic Feather anyway.

I've been reading [Nikita] Khrushchev Remembers. I know he's a bit of a lad himself - but he seemed to think that making a religion out of an individual was bad; that doesn't seem to be part of the basic Communist idea. Still people are people, that's the difficulty.

We went to America a few times and [Brian] Epstein always tried to waffle on at us about saying nothing about Vietnam. So there came a time when George [Harrison] and I said 'Listen, when they ask next time, we're going to say we don't like that war and we think they should get right out.' That's what we did.

I recently got into Haiku in Japan and I just think it's fantastic. Obviously, when you get rid of a whole section of illusion in your mind you're left with great precision.

I just like TV. I think to me, it replaced the fireplace when I was a child. They took the fire away and they put a TV in instead and I got hooked on it.

I think it's false, shallow, to be giving to others when your own need is great. The idea is not to comfort people, not to make them feel better but to make them feel worse, to constantly put before them the degradations and humiliations they go through to get what they call a living wage.

I'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.

You're born in pain and pain is what we're in most of the time. And I think that the bigger the pain, the more gods we need.

People think the Beatles know what's going on. We don't. We're just doing it.

You feel alone if you're the only one thinking 'wouldn't it be nice if there was peace and nobody was getting killed.' So advertise yourself that you're for peace if you believe in it.

Nor do I think we came from monkeys, by the wayThat's another piece of garbage. What the hell's it based on? We couldn't've come from anything-fish, maybe, but not monkeys. I don't believe in the evolution of fish to monkeys to men. Why aren't monkeys changing into men now? It's absolute garbage. It's absolutely irrational garbage, as mad as the ones who believe the world was made only four thousand years ago, the fundamentalists.

I don't have any romanticism about any part of my past. I think of it only inasmuch as it gave me pleasure or helped me grow psychologically. That is the only thing that interests me about yesterday. I don't believe in yesterday, by the way. You know I don't believe in yesterday. I am only interested in what I am doing now.

Everybody seems to think I'm lazy I don't mind, I think they're crazy. Running everywhere at such a speed Till they find there's no need.

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.

If you want to get peace, you can get it as soon as you like if we all pull together. ... Think peace, live peace, and breathe peace and you'll get it as soon as you like.

I still don't know how to express the really delicate personal stuff. People think that Plastic Ono is very personal, but there are some subtleties of emotions which I cannot seem to express in pop music, and it frustrates me. Maybe that's why I still search for other ways of expressing myself. Song writing is a limiting experience in some ways - writing down words that have to rhyme.

Am I crazy or am I a genius? I don't think I'm either.

I never listen to the radio. If it's bad, I make fun of it, and if it's good, I get jealous that I didn't think of it.

I think it's the best thing I've ever done. I think it's realistic, and it's true to the me that has been developing over the years. I like first-person music.

I believe that God is like a powerhouse, like where you keep electricity, like a power station. And that he's a supreme power, and that he's neither good not bad, left, right, black or white. He just is. And we tap that source of power and make of it what we will. Just as electricity can kill people in a chair, or you can light a room with it. I think God is.

All this bit about angels and all the different religions, it's based on something. I think anything's possible. I believe in everything until it's disproved.

I used to think it was mere homesickness, then I started getting it at home.

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.

Don't you think that the Beatles gave every sodden thing they've got to be the Beatles? That took a whole section of our youth - that whole period - when everybody else was just goofin' off we were workin' 24 hours a day!

At the (record company) meeting Paul just kept mithering on about what we were going to do, so in the end I just said, 'I think you're daft. I want a divorce.'

I think a lot of bad things have happened in the name of the church and in the name of Christ and therefore I shy away from church.

I think the music reflects the state that the society is in. It doesn't suggest the state. I think the poets and musicians and artists are of the age - not only do they lead the age on, but they also reflect that age. [...] Like The Beatles. We came out of Liverpool and we reflected our background and we reflected our thoughts in what we sang, and that's all people are doing.

Trying to please everybody is impossible - if you did that, you'd end up in the middle with nobody liking you. You've just got to make the decision about what you think is your best, and do it.

When I was about twelve I used to think I must be a genius, but nobody's noticed. If there is such a thing as a genius, I am one, and if there isn't I don't care.

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.