John Lennon

And God help Bruce Springsteen when they decide he’s no longer God… They’ll turn on him, and I hope he survives it.

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.

Our society is run by insane people for insane objectives. I think we’re being run by maniacs for maniacal ends and I think I’m liable to be put away as insane for expressing that. That’s what’s insane about it.

The more I see the less I know for sure.

Possession isn’t nine-tenths of the law. It’s nine-tenths of the problem.

My role in society, or any artist’s or poet’s role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.

He didn’t come out of my belly, but my God, I’ve made his bones, because I’ve attended to every meal, and how he sleeps, and the fact that he swims like a fish because I took him to the ocean. I’m so proud of all those things. But he is my biggest pride.

I guess my parents were strict. There were a few times when being with my friends and had bring my sister. It was just my parents best interests.

There are a few things that were just sheer, unadulterated joy, like the birth of my children.

The best thing about having a sister was that I always had a friend.

I believed in raising my children as I had been raised.

What will your children be teaching your grandchildren?

My father was a successful real estate developer, and he was a very tough man but a good man. My father would always praise me. He always thought I was the smartest person.

The debt of gratitude we owe our mother and father goes forward, not backward. What we owe our parents is the bill presented to us by our children.

I always sort of felt like the eight years that Barack was president, it was sort of like having the good parent at home. You know, the responsible parent, the one who told you to eat your carrots and go to bed on time.

My most important title is “mom-in-chief”. My daughters are still the heart of my heart and the centre of my world.

It’s much worse to read criticism about your son than yourself.

As children we recognized that we belonged to an unusual, even exceptional, family, but the effect was different on each of us.

Growing up, I was taught that a man has to defend his family. When the wolf is trying to get in, you gotta stand in the doorway.

No person in their right mind would want to put their family through what I’ve had to put my family through.

How do you build a relationship when you’ve hardly shared a word but suddenly share a child? How do you love a daughter you don’t see for nearly two years? When does she become your daughter? How does she become your daughter?