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.
Interpretation
The quote emphasizes honesty in artistic expression and a belief in the values of peace, love, and understanding.
John Lennon expresses a humble perspective on his role as an artist and a person, clarifying that he does not consider himself divine or possessing ultimate truths. Instead, he focuses on honesty in his music and conveys his belief in the fundamental virtues of peace, love, and understanding, suggesting that these values are essential for a harmonious existence.
In practice
This quote would be perfect in a discussion about the impact of music on society during a seminar.
When I get older losing my hair many years from now. Will you still be sending me a Valentine. Birthday greetings, bottle of wine? If I'd been out till quarter to three would you lock the door? Will you still need me, will you still feed me, When I'm sixty-four?
The writing of the Beatles, or John and Paul's contribution to the Beatles in the late sixties - had a kind of depth to it, a more mature, more intellectual approach. We were different people, we were older. We knew each other in all kinds of different ways than when we wrote together as teenagers and in our older twenties.
I put things down on sheets of paper and stuff them in my pockets. When I have enough, I have a book.
Guilt for being rich, and guilt thinking that perhaps love and peace isn't enough and you have to go and get shot or something.
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.
I've been baking bread and looking after the baby...Everyone else who has asked me that question over the last few years says. 'But what else have you been doing?' To which I say, 'Are you kidding?' Because bread and babies, as every housewife knows, is a full-time job. After I made the loaves [of bread,] I felt like I had conquered something. But as I watched the bread being eaten, I thought, Well, Jesus, don't I get a gold record or knighted or nothing?
Gaston was not only a fierce lover, with endless wisdom and imagination, but he was also, perhaps, the first man in the history of the species who had made an emergency landing and had come close to killing himself and his sweetheart simply to make love in a field of violets.
When you showed someone how you felt, it was fresh and honest. When you told someone how you felt, there might be nothing behind the words but habit or expectation. Those three words were what everyone used; simple syllables couldn't contain something as rare as what I felt for Sean. I wanted him to feel what I felt when I was with him: that incredible combination of comfort, decadence, and wonder; the knowledge that, with just a single taste of him, I was addicted.
If you want a love message to be heard, it has got to be sent out. To keep a lamp burning, we have to keep putting oil in it.
The ones I loved fly as birds in the open sky above me. Soaring, weaving, calling to me to join them. I want so badly to follow them, but the seawater saturates my wings, making it impossible to lift them. The ones I hated have taken to the water, horrible scaled things that tear my salty flesh with needle teeth. Biting again and again. Dragging me beneath the surface.
There are two kind of men,' said Ka, in a didatic voice. 'The first kind does not fall in love until he's seen how the girls eats a sandwich, how she combs her hair, what sort of nonsense she cares about, why she's angry at her father, and what sort of stories people tell about her. The second type of man -- and I am in this category -- can fall in love with a woman only if he knows next to nothing about her.
To love one child and to love all children, whether living or dead -somewhere these two loves come together. To love a no-good but humble punk and to love an honest man who believes himself to be an honest man -somewhere these, too, come together.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.