John Lennon

It doesn’t matter how long my hair is or what colour my skin is or whether I’m a woman or a man.

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?

God is a concept by which we measure our pain.

I’d never met a woman I considered as intelligent as me. That sounds bigheaded, but every woman I met was either a dolly-chick, or a sort of screwed-up intellectual chick. And of course, in the field I was in, I didn’t meet many intellectual people anyway. I always had this dream of meeting an artist, an artist girl who would be like me. And I thought it was a myth, but then I met Yoko and that was it.

When I cannot sing my heart, I can only speak my mind.

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.

I’ll play it first and tell you what it is later.

My creed for art in general is that it should enrich the soul; it should teach spirituality by showing a person a portion of himself that he would not discover otherwise . . . a part of yourself you never knew existed.

Everyone is working who should be.

Jazz is a living music; since its beginning has expressed the feelings, dreams and hopes of the people.

Don’t be a perfectionist… leave that to the classical musicians.

People couldn’t give an F about how many cars you got any more. It’s about the way the music sounds, where you’re going, the experience you’re going to hanging out with your friends, the type clothes that you’re wearing – all of that’s art.

One of the things I like about Jazz, kid, is I don’t know what’s going to happen next. Do you?

I don’t get jazz. It always sounds like a bunch of toddlers let loose in a music room.

Now I need to take a piece of wood and make it sound like the railroad track, but I also had to make it beautiful and lovable so that a person playing it would think of it in terms of his mistress, a bartender, his wife, a good psychiatrist – whatever.

You only go around once and this ain’t no rehearsal.

When it comes to music, don’t lie to yourself; just tell yourself the truth.

The melody is generally what the piece is all about.

By and large Jazz has always been like the kind of a man you wouldn’t want your daughter to associate with.

When I sing, I play in my mind; the minute I stop singing orally, I start to sing by playing Lucille.

I always think of music as interior decoration. So, if you have all kinds of music, you are fully decorated!