John Lennon

Work is life, you know, and without it, there’s nothing but fear and insecurity.

I’ve had the boyhood thing of being Elvis. Now I want to be with my best friend, and my best friend’s my wife. Who could ask for anything more?

Reality leaves a lot to the imagination.

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.

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 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.

I don’t do something because I think it’ll sell 30 million albums. I couldn’t care less if it sells just one.

Rather than say I play Jazz, I simply say I play music.

A Jazz musician is supposed to find his voice, find his niche and do his thing.

A Jazz Diet will make you hipper, thinner, taller, smarter, richer, happier and more attractive to members of both sexes.

Jazz and love are the hardest things to describe from rationale.

You explore beautiful songs and create your own interpretation of them.

You hear about the Duke Ellingtons, the Jimmie Luncefords, and the Fletcher Hendersons, but people sometimes forget that jazz was not only built in the minds of the great ones, but on the backs of the ordinary ones.

Albert King wasn’t my brother in blood, but he sure was my brother in Blues!

It is becoming increasingly difficult to decide where jazz starts or where it stops, where Tin Pan Alley begins and jazz ends, or even where the borderline lies between classical music and jazz. I feel there is no boundary line.

I’m not claiming divinity. I’ve never claimed purity of soul. I’ve never claimed to have the answers to life. I only put out songs and answer questions as honestly as I can… But I still believe in peace, love and understanding.

The boppers flat their fifths. We consume ours.

Jazz is one of the best things that you can find in your life, it can always be your friend.

I played in rhumba bands, mickey mouse bands; all kinds of bands.

Change is always happening. That’s one of the wonderful things about Jazz music.

If the audience doesn’t hear what is going on, is it going on?