976 Quotes by John Lennon

In one way, I was always hip. I was hip in kindergarten. I was different from the others. There was something wrong with me, I thought, because I seemed to see things people didn’t see. I always saw things in a hallucinatory way.

The worst drugs are as bad as anybody’s told you. It’s just a dumb trip, which I can’t condemn people if they get into it, because one gets into it for one’s own personal, social, emotional reasons. It’s something to be avoided if one can help it.

You don’t need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are!

I once was the walrus, now I’m John.

If you want peace, you won’t get it with violence.

I’ve always been politically minded and against the status quo. It’s pretty basic when you’re brought up, like I was, to hate and fear the police as a natural enemy and to despise the army as something that takes everybody away and leaves them dead somewhere.

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.

The thing the sixties did was to show us the possibilities and the responsibility that we all had. It wasn’t the answer. It just gave us a glimpse of the possibility.

I enjoyed it when football crowds in the early days would sing ‘All together now’ – that was another one. I was also pleased when the movement in America took up ‘Give peace a chance’ because I had written it with that in mind really.