We've got this gift of love, but love is like a precious plant. You can't just accept it and leave it in the cupboard or just think it's going to get on by itself. You've got to keep watering it. You've got to really look after it and nurture it.
Interpretation
Love requires care and attention to thrive; it cannot sustain itself without effort.
In this quote, John Lennon emphasizes the importance of actively nurturing love rather than taking it for granted. He uses the metaphor of a precious plant to illustrate that love needs consistent care, support, and attention to flourish. Just like a plant won't survive if left uncared for, love too demands dedication and effort from those who wish to keep it alive.
In practice
During a wedding speech, to emphasize the importance of tending to one's relationship.
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?
What's it like to be a baby? It's like being in love in Paris for the first time after you've had three double espressos.
I believe in person to person; every person is Christ for me, and since there is only one Jesus, that person is only one person in the world for me at that moment.
My chief occupation, despite appearances, has always been love.
When he spoke, what tender words he used! So softly, that like flakes of feathered snow, They melted as they fell.
Love comes more naturally to the human heart than its opposite.
[Their love] had burned itself out, like a forgotten candle in an empty room, leaving behind a ravenous discontent.
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