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Where do people get off saying the Beatles should give $200,000,000 to South America? You know, America has poured billions into places like that. It doesn't mean a damn thing. After they've eaten that meal, then what? It lasts for only a day. After the $200,000,000 is gone, then what? It goes round and round in circles. You can pour money in forever. After Peru, then Harlem, then Britain. There is no one concert. We would have to dedicate the rest of our lives to one world concert tour, and I'm not ready for it. Not in this lifetime, anyway.
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The world went mad and used us as an excuse.
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Newspaper people have a habit of putting you in the front pages to sell their papers, and then after they've sold their papers and got big circulations, they say, 'Look at what we've done for you...
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The thing is, in America, it just seemed ridiculous - I mean, the idea of having a hit record over there, ... It was just something you could never do.
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There was something wrong with me, I thought, because I seemed to see things other people didn't see.
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We had one thing in common – we were in love. But love is just a gift, and it doesn't answer everything and it's like a precious plant that you have to nurture and look after and all that.
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There are a lot of people walking around with long hair now and some trendy middle class kids in pretty clothes. But nothing changed except that we all dressed up a bit, leaving the same bastards running everything.
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I want you to make love, not war, I know you've heard it before.
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We all have Hitler in us, but we also have love and peace. So why not give peace a chance for once?
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As a kid I had a dream - I wanted to own my own bicycle. When I got the bike I must have been the happiest boy in Liverpool, maybe the world. I lived for that bike. Most kids left their bike in the backyard at night. Not me. I insisted on taking mine indoors and the first night I even kept it in my bed.
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Imagine ... Imagine no religion.
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If being an egomaniac means I believe in what I do and in my art or music, then in that respect you can call me that... I believe in what I do, and I'll say it.
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When you do something noble and beautiful and nobody noticed, do not be sad. For the sun every morning is a beautiful spectacle and yet most of the audience still sleeps.
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Imagine there's no varmints. It isn't hard to do.
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I believe that God is like a powerhouse, like where you keep electricity, like a power station. And that he's a supreme power, and that he's neither good not bad, left, right, black or white. He just is. And we tap that source of power and make of it what we will. Just as electricity can kill people in a chair, or you can light a room with it. I think God is.
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Polythene Pam was me, remembering a little event with a woman in Jersey, and a man who was England's answer to Allen Ginsberg, who gave us our first exposure - this is so long - you can't deal with all this. You see, everything triggers amazing memories. I met him when we were on tour and he took me back to his apartment and I had a girl and he had one he wanted me to meet. He said she dressed up in polythene, which she did. She didn't wear jackboots and kilts, I just sort of elaborated. Perverted sex in a polythene bag. Just looking for something to write about.
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People are just up tight because the kids are having fun and they didn't have the same freedom.
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What I'm trying to do is to influence all the people I can influence. All those who are still under the dream and just put a big question mark in their mind. The acid dream is over, that is what I'm trying to tell them.
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If you're an unknown artist you're lucky to get an hour in a studio - it's a hierarchy and if you don't have hits, you don't get recorded again.
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I regret profoundly that I was not an American and not born in Greenwich Village. It might be dying, and there might be a lot of dirt in the air you breathe, but this is where it's happening.
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Love is real, real is love, Love is feeling, feeling love, Love is wanting to be loved. Love is touch, touch is love, Love is reaching, reaching love, Love is asking to be loved. Love is you, You and me, Love is knowing, We can be. Love is free, free is love, Love is living, living love, Love is needing to be loved.
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I'm not going to sacrifice love, real love, for any *%@$n' war or any friend, or any business, because in the end you're alone at night.
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Imagine no possesions, I wonder if you can, No need for greed or hunger, A brotherhood of man. Imagine all the people Sharing all the world.
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When I was singing about 'All You Need Is Love' I was talking about something I hadn't experienced.