Quotes By John Lennon

We're more popular than Jesus now.... Jesus was alright but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.

I am a violent man who has learned not to be violent and regrets his violence.

You're born in pain. Pain is what we are in most of the time, and I think that the bigger the pain, the more God you look for.

I don't want to die, and I don't want to be hurt physically, but if they blow the world up... we're all out of our pain then, forget it, no more problems!

You can't just keep quiet about anything that's going on in the world unless you're a monk. Sorry, monks!

When Paul first sang 'Hey Jude' to me-or played me the little tape he'd made of it-I took it very personally. 'Ah, it's me!' I said. 'It's me.' He says, 'No, it's me.' I said, 'Check, we're going through the same bit.' So we all are. Whoever is going through that bit with us is going through it; that's the groove.

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.

That was a great period. We were like kings of the jungle then, and we were very close to the Stones.... I spent a lot of time with them, and it was great.

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.

I used to be cruel to women, 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.

When you're drowning you don't think, I would be incredibly pleased if someone would notice I'm drowning and come and rescue me. You just scream.

We live in a world where we have to hide to make love, while violence is practiced in broad daylight.

Paul [McCartney] and I made a deal when we were 15. There was never a legal deal between us, just a deal we made when we decided to write together that we put both our names on it, no matter what.

The biggest mistake Yoko and I made... was allowing ourselves to become influenced by the male-macho 'serious revolutionaries,' and their insane ideas about killing people to save them from capitalism and/or communism (depending on your point of view). We should have stuck to our own way of working for peace: bed-ins, billboards, etc.

We're not Beatles to each other, you know. It's a joke to us. If we're going out the door of the hotel, we say, 'Right! Beatle John! Beatle George now! Come on, let's go!' We don't put on a false front or anything.

We were four guys... I met Paul, and said, 'You want to join me band?' Then George joined and then Ringo joined. We were just a band that made it very, very, big, that's all. Our best work was never recorded.

After Brian [Epstein] died, we collapsed. Paul took over and supposedly led us. But what is leading us, when we went round in circles? We broke up then. That was the disintegration.

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.

That is one of the main reasons the Beatles ended. I can't speak for George, but I pretty damn well know we got fed up of being sidemen for Paul.

I meant it, it's real; the lyric is as good now as it was then. It's no different. And it makes me feel secure to know that I was that sensible, or whatever-not sensible, aware of myself... It was just me singing 'Help' and I meant it.