Yoko Ono Quotes

Sometimes I am happy and sometimes not. I am, after all, a human being, you know. And I am glad that we are sometimes happy and sometimes not. You get your wisdom working by having different emotions.

I get very nervous before I get on the stage, but once I'm on the stage, I'm just, you know, me. Nothing hurts me.

Some people think that movements, such as the movements in ballet, are a higher cultural expression, whereas some are just dirt. I think it is elitist to think that a trained movement is more acceptable than untrained and possibly unrehearsed movements.

The regret of my life is that I have not said 'I love you' often enough.

Some people are saying there's going to be a third World War. I hope not. I really think this is a time that people can start to mend things by negotiations, dealings. We know about dealings, don't we? We have brilliant lawyers. Why don't we have brilliant lawyers standing up and working for peace?

Please know that being 80 is not a scary thing. When you're 80, your life is much freer.

Imagine a dolphin dancing in the sky. Let it dance with joy. Think of yourself at the bottom of the ocean watching.

Women are put in a position of feeling embarrassed about their bodies. It's so ridiculous, but also astounding - we have to always be apologetic about having created the human race.

Chemically speaking or biologically, we research things, but we don't know half of them. We only know our half of it - symbolically - and we don't know ourselves more than half.

Women have become stronger, and there's a backlash. Men have become terribly possessive. I find it much easier to get on with women.

The odds of not meeting in this life are so great that every meeting is like a miracle. It's a wonder that we don't make love to every single person we meet.

When I got pregnant, I had to concentrate on being pregnant for a whole nine months, even though I knew it was ruining my career at the time.

Performance art is going to be the future. Plays on Broadway are so restricted. But performance art is like haikus, just one line thing. And it's more casual but more interesting.

See what you can do. See what you want to do. See what you will do about it. Find your way out.

Marriage is a gamble, let's be honest.

Art is an effort to make you walk a half an inch above ground.

What surprises me is-even though discrimination against women and racial discrimination still exist, they have improved a lot, especially among artists. And just when I felt I could finally take a break, I encounter the age discrimination. I turned 72 and started noticing a drastic difference in people's attitudes. I started with racism and sexism in the beginning and fought them so hard and was finally ready to relax. Then, here comes ageism, and I feel like, "Give me a break!"

Art for me is like breathing. When I stop breathing, what happens?

The nice thing about the gallery shows is that without having to pay any money you can just go and see it.

Luckily we never injected because both of us were totally scared about needles. So that probably saved us. And the other thing that saved us was our connection was not very good.

Bless you for your jealousy; it is a sign of empathy.

I never want projects to be finished; I have always believed in unfinished work. I got that from Schubert, you know, the 'Unfinished Symphony.'

When you go on a stage, before you go on a stage you're really scared and you're really frightened. You don't know what to do. "Why did I say yes to this?" But once you're on the stage you think, "Okay."

When you are totally depressed, you should try giggling. Just make yourself laugh. Force yourself to laugh.

Smile to the future and it will smile back to you

Many incredible artists die before they were famous.

Being alone is very difficult.

All I can say is, it's not very easy for a woman to be associated with The Beatles.

I never thought, "I'm going to be an artist". When I actually began to become successful in the art world I made it a point to say, 'I am a dilettante, I am not a professional artist", which is true.

I'm a politician. Politics is just a convenience for our life and we just have to create a beautiful world together that would be very convenient for us and just enjoyable.

Try to say nothing negative about anybody.
a) for three days
b) for forty-five days
c) for three months
See what happens to your life.

I have to be pretty inclusive. I have to be pretty much inside of me rather than going out and finding out what people are doing. I don't have the time to. I just listen to my mind, in a way.

Most people like to hear sounds they are used to.

Everything has complexity. Everything has simplicity. You just grab it.

I trust myself. You need that to survive.

When you go through a negative situation, don't think about it. Make it positive.

You can't dance if you got too much muck in your head.

If I hear dance music, my body starts to move. Whatever the dance music is, I can't help it. With all that, I still felt, well, rock is a little higher art, but it wasn't. Right now, because I have so much experience with dance charts, I started to realize that it's incredible art. This is going to be known one day as high art.

Many of my songs were dance orientated from way back. That's because I love dance! When I hear a dance number, just hearing the first eight bars, it immediately makes my bod start moving and dancing.

Women are very intelligent and not appreciated. We try to pretend that we are not clever, and it's such a pity that we can't show how clever we are.

There's nothing bad about feminism. We have to help each other, because there's a lot of women in the world who are suffering because the fact is we're not equal. It's as plain as that. It's still a men's world. I don't know. We'll go on with it.

I respect Lady Gaga very much.

If you have too many quotes from other people in your head, you can't create. You have to keep your head empty. That's why I am constantly enjoying the sky, the park, the walk.

Loneliness is equal to the radius of one's awareness.

The 1960s were about releasing ourselves from conventional society and freeing ourselves.

Kill all the men you have slept with. Put the bones in a box and send it into the sea with flowers.

I think of John every day. I do try to block it, but December 8th is not the only day I think of him.

I realized that an artist seeking to tell the truth in her art takes great courage. I recognize the courage required to bring children together from Israeli and Palestinian communities to find commonality in music as a very powerful and effective beginning towards Peace.

When you are suffering, you become more understanding about yourself, but also about other people's sufferings too. That's the first step to understand somebody is to understand their sufferings. So then love follows.

We're growing up together, the human race. And we've discovered a lot of things that we didn't know. We're finding our way. Instead of thinking about doomsday all the time, think about how beautiful the world is. We're all together, and together we're getting wiser.

Some people say, "Sometimes I have violent thoughts, what can I do?" So I say, "Well, have them!" Cos we should not try to control ourselves. It's very bad to control ourselves in this sense. If you have any emotion at all, if its a bad emotion or good emotion, think about it, you should just understand that you have those emotions. And it's good because we are people and we have all these emotions. And the result of that is you would become more and more peaceful. If you don't let those emotions be inside of you then you become extremely violent.

The whole world is starting to realize that it was the most unwise thing for our society to have ignored women power, to run the society with male priorities.

To have a relationship that is pure and passionate and beautiful - I think people are scared of having that now. Especially guys.

You change the world by being yourself.

The work of the poet has always been to shine a bright light on the absurdities of society, challenging hypocrisy and greed, and presenting the tools of change. (Donovan)

John's was not a glum, negative, insulting attack on society but a sharp-witted, entertaining, cock-a-snook approach that encouraged young people to express themselves as individuals and to reject the stifling rigidity of a lot of the older social traditions. Thanks to John, to give one example, regional dialects were no longer looked upon as a hindrance. He made no attempt to tone down his Liverpool accent (indeed, he exaggerated it) and this encouraged others to follow suit. Previously, without cut-glass Oxford English, it was impossible for anyone to make progress in the media. John changed all that, and a great deal more as well. (Desmond Morris)

It's better to dance than to march through life.

I never wanted to be a professional artist; I think that's limiting.

All my concerts had no sounds in them; they were completely silent. People had to make up their own music in their minds!

We're all water from different rivers,
That's why it's so easy to meet,
We're all water in this vast, vast ocean,
Someday we'll evaporate together.

The thing that would most improve my life is 27 hours in a day. I could meet all my deadlines.

When you are feeling bad, do one thing a day to make your heart dance. It could be a simple thing like looking up at the sky.

It's difficult to explain love. You want to explain water? You need a book for it. There are many different ways to explain what water is. Love is big, it's very big. I know that I have tons of it. But maybe we don't want to open up so much, and we think, maybe we don't have so much, but yes, you know that you have tons of love. We all do. Through that love we can connect, we can heal each other, we can make people, all of us, happy, joyful, and make a better world.

A dream you dream alone may be a dream, but a dream two people dream together is a reality.

Mirror becomes a razor when it's broken. A stick becomes a flute when it's loved.

Power is not something we should be afraid of. Power is great, power is energy. And in terms of energy, the most important energy is human spiritual energy and when I say spiritual, I feel like have to be very careful, I don't mean religious, I mean the energy of the mind, the energy that exists within us.

Your thoughts create reality. The most pragmatic way to create world peace is to use your power of visualization. Think Peace, Act Peace, Spread Peace, Imagine Peace. Your thoughts will soon cover the planet. The most important thing is to believe in your power. It works.

I thought art was a verb, rather than a noun.

Sleep in separate cities.
Sleep in separate countries.
Sleep on separate planets.
Whisper to each other.

To me, the concept of distance is not important. Distance doesn't exist, in fact, and neither does time. Vibrations from love or music can be felt everywhere, at all times.

My husband John Lennon was a very special man. A man of humble origin, he brought light and hope to the whole world with his words and music.

I think that there is a sort of spiritual power that is translating into our bodies as we perform. Performers give, and giving is so important. It can heal. That is my experience, anyway.

People think that their world will get smaller as they get older. My experience is just the opposite. Your senses become more acute. You start to blossom.

I just wish that people will be kinder to me when I pass away.

What the Beatles did was something incredible, it was more than what a band could do. We have to give them respect.

Write down everything you fear in life.
Burn it.
Pour herbal oil with a sweet scent on the ashes.

Tape the sound of the moon fading at dawn. Give it to your mother to listen to when she's in sorrow.

Sometimes I have compared myself with a scientist or something: when you discover something and you don't expect the whole world to understand it. I always thought I was doing that kind of activity, in art and in music too.

My career? I never think of it as a 'career.' Art and music and all those things that I'm creating are just part of me.

I think energy is the most important thing that we can give to people as performers. Anything else is a little bit pretentious. But energy is not.

Getting into creating in a new genre is like arriving to a new country.

It is very difficult for us to know we love somebody because it is an insecure position to be in. But in the end, it is important to be honest about your love because life is not that long.

Smile in the mirror. Do that every morning and you'll start to see a big difference in your life.

When I'm putting some communication out on Twitter or Facebook or Instagram, I think that it's helping me, my brain, you know, because it's always somehow stimulated by people who are sending things to me. And it works both ways. It's great. My brain is very happy about it.

There is an incredible love in creating art unless somebody is saying, 'Hey, let's just make money,' because it doesn't work when you do it that way. If you are aiming for that, forget it.

Be silent in a group of people
See what they reveal to you.

Your private life is really very important for you. You know, all of us, you know.

Spring passes and one remembers one's innocence.
Summer passes and one remembers one's exuberance.
Autumn passes and one remembers one's reverence.
Winter passes and one remembers one's perseverance.

There's many women now who think, 'Surely we don't need feminism anymore, we're all liberated and society's accepting us as we are'. Which is just hogwash. It's not true at all.

I'm not interested so much in collaboration. You see that from the history of my albums.

I thank Pussy Riot for standing firmly in their belief for Freedom of Expression, and making all women of the world proud to be women.

The first idea, the first art piece I ever did, was when I was four. I cut the seed of a pear in half and the seed of an apple in half in put those two halves together and planted the seed, hoping a very strange tree might grow. And I never stopped.

You can be lonely when you have a guy living with you.

Listen to the sound of the earth turning.

When you're imagining peace, you can't kill anyone. That's good isn't it?

Basically there are two types of people in the world: people who are confident because they know they have the ability to create, and then people who have been demoralised, who have no confidence in themselves because they have been told they have no creative ability, but must just take orders. The Establishment likes people who take no responsibility and cannot respect themselves.

The process is always the same. I get an inspiration for a new song, I put it down on paper immediately so I won't lose it. When I am ready to go to the studio with it, I play it a few times on the piano and edit, add, and type the lyrics and take it to the studio. Sometimes I don't have anything on paper.

Most of the fans of John Lennon and maybe John and Yoko are younger than me.

Indie music is 'it' now. It's kind of a revolution to the music: 1980s, 1990s music was getting very sanitized; they were complying with the music industry. Music was getting more and more dead in a way. Now, because of the social climate that's very severe, the artists are compelled to start being real. It's really great that indie music is now.

We need to really do something about the world. Otherwise, we're all going to blow up together.