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.
Interpretation
John Lennon expresses a deep admiration for Greenwich Village, viewing it as a vibrant hub of creativity and culture, despite its imperfections.
In this quote, John Lennon reflects on his deep desire to be part of the artistic and cultural life of Greenwich Village, a place he perceives as the epicenter of creativity and social change. He acknowledges the flaws and challenges of the environment—the dirt in the air and the notion of decline—but nonetheless sees immense value in being part of such a vital and dynamic community where significant events and movements are occurring.
In practice
In a speech about the importance of community in the arts, this quote can illustrate the value of being in a vibrant cultural hub.
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'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?
We all been playing those mind games forever, Some kinda druid dudes lifting the veil, Doing the mind guerrilla, Some call it magic the search for the grail. Love is the answer and you know that for sure, Love is a flower you got to let it grow...
Life is like a cash register, in that every account, every thought, every deed, like every sale, is registered and recorded.
...mathematics is distinguished from all other sciences except only ethics, in standing in no need of ethics. Every other science, even logic, especially in its early stages, is in danger of evaporating into airy nothingness, degenerating, as the Germans say, into an arachnoid film, spun from the stuff that dreams are made of. There is no such danger for pure mathematics; for that is precisely what mathematics ought to be.
It is the main earthly business of a human being to make his home, and the immediate surroundings of his home, as symbolic and significant to his own imagination as he can.
The Tao teaches us not to intervene and interfere. The things we love we have to learn to leave alone. And the people we love we have to learn to let them be.
One word is too often profaned For me to profane it, One feeling too falsely disdained For thee to disdain it.
I care little in the existence of a heaven or hell; self respect does not allow me to guide my acts with an eye toward heavenly salvation or hellish punishment. I pursue the good in life because it is beautiful and attracts me; and shun the bad because it is ugly and repulsive. All our acts should originate from the spring of unselfish love, whether there be a continuation after death or not.
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