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What would you suggest I do? Give everything away and walk the streets? The Buddhist says, 'Get rid of the possessions of the mind.' Walking away from all the money would not accomplish that. It's like the Beatles. I couldn't walk away from the Beatles. That's one possession that's still tagging along, right?
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I don't bother so much about the others' songs. For instance, I don't give a damn about how 'Something' is doing in the charts - I watch 'Come Together' (the flip side) because that's my song.
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Time you enjoy wasting, was not wasted.
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We never made love in a bag. People probably imagined that we were making love. It was just, all of us are in a bag, you know. The point was the outline of the bag, you know, the movement of the bag, how much we see of a person, you know. But, inside, there might be a lot going on. Or maybe nothing's going on.
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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.
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I was looking for a name like the Crickets that meant two things, and from crickets I got to beetles. And I changed to B E A because … B E E T L E S didn't mean two things, so I changed … the E to an A. And it meant two things then. … When you said it, people thought of crawly things; and when you read it, it was beat music.
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I've never met anybody who's had a flashback in my life and I took millions of trips in the Sixties, and I've never met anybody who had any problem. I've had bad trips, but I've had bad trips in real life. I've had a bad trip on a joint. I can get paranoid just sitting in a restaurant; I don't have to take anything.
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The Beatles had gone beyond comprehension. We were smoking marijuana for breakfast. We were well into marijuana and nobody could communicate with us, because we were just glazed eyes, giggling all the time.
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You don't have to be some sort of freak to meditate
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If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry.
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A Conspiracy of silence speaks louder than words.
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The second political thing I did was to say 'The Beatles are bigger than Jesus.' That really broke the scene, I nearly got shot in America for that. It was a big trauma for all the kids that were following us.
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I don't believe in Elvis I don't believe in Zimmerman I don't believe in Beatles I just believe in me.
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And so this is Xmas for black and for white, for yellow and red, let's stop all the fight.
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Pools of sorrow waves of joy are drifting thorough my open mind possessing and caressing...
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I realized that kids everywhere go for the same stuff; and seeing as we'd done it in England, there's no reason why we couldn't do it in America too.
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If people take any notice of what we say, we say we've been through the drug scene, man, and there's nothing like being straight.
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I've withdrawn many times. Part of me is a monk, and part a performing flea! The fear in the music business is that you don't exist if you're not at Xenon with Andy Warhol.
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The whole Beatle thing was just beyond comprehension. When 'Help' came out, I was actually crying out for help. Most people think it's just a fast rock 'n roll song. I didn't realize it at the time; I just wrote the song because I was commissioned to write it for the movie. But later, I knew I really was crying out for help.
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When his rolls royce was mobbed by fans the chauffeur said: ''do you want me to get them off the car?'' and Lennon replied: ''No - they paid for it, they can wreck it...
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What I'd have liked would have been the money and the hit records without the fame.
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Music touching my soul, the spirit dance was unfolding.
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I'm not really a career person; I'm a gardener, basically.
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They want to hold onto something they never had in the first place. Anybody who claims to have some interest in me as an individual artist or even as part of the Beatles has absolutely misunderstood everything I ever said if they can't see why I'm with Yoko. And if they can't see that, they don't see anything. They're just jacking off to - it could be anybody. Mick Jagger or somebody else. Let them go jack off to Mick Jagger, okay? I don't need it.