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

Lennon: "Surrealism had a great effect on me because then I realised that the imagery in my mind wasn't insanity. Surrealism to me is reality."

Lennon: "If you want peace, you won't get it with violence."

Lennon: "When you do something beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun, every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps."

Lennon: "There's nowhere you can be that isn't where you're meant to be."

Lennon: "There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance."

Lennon: "The more I see the less I know for sure."

Lennon: "Peace is not something you wish for; It’s something you make, something you do, something you are, and something you give away."

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

Lennon: "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."

Lennon: "Life is very short, and there's no time for fussing and fighting my friends."

Lennon: "I believe in everything until it's disproved. So I believe in fairies, the myths, dragons. It all exists, even if it's in your mind. Who's to say that dreams and nightmares aren't as real as the here and now?"

Lennon: "The trouble with government as it is, is that it doesn't represent the people. It controls them."

Lennon: "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."

Lennon: "Being honest may not get you a lot of friends, but it’ll always get you the right ones."

Lennon: "Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue with that; I'm right and I will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus now; I don't know which will go first - rock and roll or Christianity."

Lennon: "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?"

Lennon: "Where do people get off saying the Beatles should give $200,000,000 to South America? You know, America has poured billions into places like that. It doesn't mean a damn thing. After they've eaten that meal, then what? It lasts for only a day. After the $200,000,000 is gone, then what? It goes round and round in circles. You can pour money in forever. After Peru, then Harlem, then Britain. There is no one concert. We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I'm not ready for it. Not in this lifetime, anyway."

Lennon: "Nobody controls me. I'm uncontrollable. The only one who can control me is me, and even that's barely possible."

Lennon: "If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that... I believe in what I do, and I'll say it."

Lennon: "A dream you dream alone is only a dream. A dream you dream together is reality."

Lennon: "Produce your own dream. If you want to save Peru, go save Peru. It’s quite possible to do anything, but not if you put it on the leaders and the parking meters. Don’t expect Carter or Reagan or John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus Christ to come and do it for you. You have to do it yourself."

Lennon: "Reality leaves a lot to the imagination."

Lennon: "When you're drowning, you don't say 'I would be incredibly pleased if someone would have the foresight to notice me drowning and come and help me,' you just scream."

Lennon: "There's nothing you can know that isn't known."

Lennon: "The basic thing nobody asks is why do people take drugs of any sort? Why do we have these accessories to normal living to live? I mean, is there something wrong with society that's making us so pressurized, that we cannot live without guarding ourselves against it?"

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

Lennon: "I think a lot of bad things have happened in the name of the church and in the name of Christ. Therefore I shy away from church..."

Lennon: "These 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."

Lennon: "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans."

Lennon: "My role in society, or any artist's 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."

Lennon: "Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me."

Lennon: "There are two basic motivating forces: fear and love. When we are afraid, we pull back from life. When we are in love, we open to all that life has to offer with passion, excitement, and acceptance. We need to learn to love ourselves first, in all our glory and our imperfections. If we cannot love ourselves, we cannot fully open to our ability to love others or our potential to create. Evolution and all hopes for a better world rest in the fearlessness and open-hearted vision of people who embrace life."

Lennon: "Everybody loves you when you're six foot in the ground."

Lennon: "The women are very important too, we can't have a revolution that doesn't involve and liberate women. It's so subtle the way you're taught male superiority."

Lennon: "Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it."

Lennon: "The 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."

Lennon: "Will the people in the cheaper seats clap your hands? And the rest of you, if you'll just rattle your jewelry."

Lennon: "I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It's just that the translations have gone wrong."

Lennon: "Possession isn't nine-tenths of the law. It's nine-tenths of the problem."

Lennon: "I used to be cruel to my woman, and physically - any woman. I was a hitter. I couldn't express myself and I hit. I fought men and I hit women. That is why I am always on about peace, you see. It is the most violent people who go for love and peace. Everything's the opposite. But I sincerely believe in love and peace. I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence. I will have to be a lot older before I can face in public how I treated women as a youngster."

Lennon: "Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted."