Citations by John Lennon

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It was just a gradual development over the years. Last year was "All You Need Is Love." This year it's "Give Peace a Chance." Remember love. The only hope for any of us is peace. Violence begets violence. If you want to get peace, you can get it as soon as you like if we all pull together. You're all geniuses and you're all beautiful. You don't need anybody to tell you who you are or what you are. You are what you are. Get out there and get peace. Think peace, live peace, and breathe peace and you'll get it as soon as you like. Okay?

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I really thought that love would save us all.

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When you're thirty-five, you can't take as much booze and I always got a little violent on drink. So it was kind of a self-destructive suicide side of me, which is resolving itself for the better, I believe, because I never enjoyed it.

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We're trying to sell peace, like a product, you know, and sell it like people sell soap or soft drinks. And it's the only way to get people aware that peace is possible, and it isn't just inevitable to have violence. Not just war, all forms of violence.

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When I was about twelve, I used to think I must be a genius, but nobody's noticed. Either I'm a genius or I'm mad, which is it? "No," I said, "I can't be mad because nobody's put me away; therefore I'm a genius." Genius is a form of madness and we're all that way. But I used to be coy about it, like me guitar playing. But if there's such a thing as genius, I am one. And if there isn't, I don't care.

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

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We were all on this ship in the sixties, our generation, a ship going to discover the New World. And the Beatles were in the crow's nest of that ship. We were part of it and contributed what we contributed. I can't designate what we did and didn't do. It depends on how each individual was impressed by the Beatles or how our shock wave went to different people. We were going through the changes, and all we were saying was, it's raining up here, or there's land or there's a sun or we can see a seagull. We were just reporting what was happening to us.

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One has to completely humiliate oneself to be what the Beatles were, and that's what I resent. I mean I did it, I didn't know, I didn't foresee; it just happened, bit by bit, gradually, until this complete craziness is surrounding you and you're doing exactly what you don't want to do with people you can't stand, the people you hated when you were ten. And that's what I'm saying with this album, I remember what it's all about now, you fuckers: fuck you! That's what I'm saying, you don't get me twice.

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Before Elvis there was nothing.

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We are both sensitive people and we were hurt a lot by it. I mean, we couldn't understand it. When you're in love, when somebody says something like, 'How can you be with that woman? ' you say, 'What do you mean? I am with this goddess of love, the fulfilment of my whole life. Why are you saying this? Why do you want to throw a rock at her or punish me for being in love with her? ' Our love helped us survive it, but some of it was pretty violent. There were a few times when we nearly went under, but we managed to survive it and here we are. [John looks up] Thank you, thank you, thank you.