John Lennon

Life is what happens to you when you’re busy making other plans.

The postman wants an autograph. The cab driver wants a picture. The waitress wants a handshake. Everyone wants a piece of you.

As usual, there is a great woman behind every idiot.

I believe in God, but not as one thing, not as an old man in the sky. I believe that what people call God is something in all of us. I believe that what Jesus and Mohammed and Buddha and all the rest said was right. It’s just that the translations have gone wrong.

Part of me suspects that I’m a loser, and the other part of me thinks I’m God Almighty.

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.

Talking about music is like dancing about architecture.

Jazz is America’s classical music.

I’m too busy playing. When I’m playing I don’t pay attention to who’s listening. When I was listening I listened to symphony orchestras, Beethoven, Bach, Brahms, Stravinsky. You don’t listen to one instrument; you listen to music.

I think we musicians are emissaries. Every time we go before the public, we’re there to make converts.

Jazz is the only music in which the same note can be played night after night but differently each time.

I want a kick to my band, but I don’t want the rhythm to hog the spotlight.

It’s easy to play any musical instrument, just touch the right key at the right time and the instrument will play itself.

Jazz is not dead, it just smells funny.

A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write to ultimately be at peace with himself.

Our music artistry should not be disconnected from our lives or ourselves.

To me, singing is like talking. If it ain’t natural, it ain’t right.

Art is a subject that is inundated with opinions. In fact, that’s all it is about is opinions.

If a Jazz musician plays someone else’s song, he has a responsibility to make a distinct and original statement.

I’ve never known a musician who regretted being one. Whatever deceptions life may have in store for you, music itself is not going to let you down.

The genius of our country is improvisation, and jazz reflects that. It’s our great contribution to the arts.