John Lennon

Songwriting is about getting the demon out of me. It’s like being possessed. You try to go to sleep, but the song won’t let you. So you have to get up and make it into something, and then you’re allowed to sleep. It’s always in the middle of the night, or you’re half-awake or tired, when your critical faculties are switched off. So letting go is what the whole game is. Every time you try to put your finger on it, it slips away. You turn on the lights and the cockroaches run away. You can never grasp them…

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.

You either get tired fighting for peace, or you die.

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.

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there’d be peace.

We’re more popular than Jesus now; I don’t know which will go first, rock ‘n’ roll or Christianity.

When I see something I like, I buy it, but I do not look for it madly.

Wealth – any income that is at least one hundred dollars more a year than the income of one’s wife’s sister’s husband.

I am convinced that material things can contribute a lot to making one’s life pleasant, but, basically, if you do not have very good friends and relatives who matter to you, life will be really empty and sad and material things cease to be important.

We were afraid of attempts of kidnapping.

If necessity is the mother of invention, discontent is the father of progress.

Someday I want to be rich. Some people get so rich they lose all respect for humanity. That’s how rich I want to be.

Money can add very much to one’s ability to lead a constructive life, not only pleasant for oneself, but, hopefully, beneficial to others.

Much corporate giving is charitable in nature rather than philanthropic.

I think it’s sad when people make a lot of money and they want the biggest boat or the biggest car or the biggest plane.

We went to theatres and museums with a crowd of bodyguards.

Of great wealth there is no real use, except in its distribution, the rest is just conceit.

No man’s fortune can be an end worthy of his being.

Philanthropy is involved with basic innovations that transform society, not simply maintaining the status quo or filling basic social needs that were formerly the province of the public sector.

I am the wealthiest man, not just in Europe, but in the whole world. I collect emotions. I am wealthy in that the people of Russia have twice entrusted me with the leadership of a great nation such as Russia – I believe that is my greatest wealth.

I would be a billionaire if I was looking to be a selfish boss. That’s not me.