Yoko Ono S Quotes & Sayings

I think if you give in and accept society's stereotypes, then you start thinking, 'I cannot dance till late at night because I'm 70.' — Yoko Ono

True artists are prophets. I don't want to be that prophetic in that sense because it's so lonely. — Yoko Ono

A throne is always paid for in blood.
The king of En had told her that once. Even should a king's ascension be bloodless as a gift from Heaven, to hold onto one's throne invariably meant that blood must flow
as it had at the beginning, in the fight against the false king's armies, and the quelling of civil war, and the execution of criminals.
Luckily, the fighting part was easy for Yoko. All she had to do was resist the temptation to run away. — Fuyumi Ono

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

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? — Yoko Ono

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. — Yoko Ono

To have world peace, we all have to have a healthy understanding of what is necessary to bring World Peace. It's not something that will be dropped on our laps. We have to work for it. Until we get World Peace, I think my strongest passion stays in the effort to get it. — Yoko Ono

You should do something that will make your heart dance once a day. If you can't do that because you're too depressed, then do something that will make somebody else's heart dance. — Yoko Ono

It's always good to do something that is not a repeat. I just don't believe in repeating. — Yoko Ono

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. — Yoko Ono

O SANITY
It's only sane to be insane
Psychotic builds a castle
And neurotic lives in it
I don't know what to do with my sanity
When the world's at the verge of calamity
O' sanity, o' sanity
What am I to do with you
Drink up, shoot up, anything you please
But you're always standing behind me
Like a devil in hell
O' sanity, sanity
Why don't you let me go?
Let go, let go!
Cut it out! — Yoko Ono

Produce your own dream. If you want to save Peru, go save Peru. It's quite possible to do anything, but not if you put it on the leaders and the parking meters. Don't expect Carter or Reagan or John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus Christ to come and do it for you. You have to do it yourself. — John Lennon

Give peace a chance and let's hope that one day we will all live in peace. — Yoko Ono

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

There's a long life ahead of you and it's going to be beautiful, as long as you keep loving and hugging each other. — Yoko Ono

There is an alternative to war. It's staying in bed and growing your hair. — John Lennon

Jean-Baptiste Mondino: "She's John Lennon and Yoko Ono at the same time". — Madonna Ciccone

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. — Yoko Ono

Some people get medals and awards and all that, and maybe not intentionally - maybe the world is making them do it - but they sort of just follow what they were doing. Repeat or follow what they were doing all their lives, in their style of music or whatever. In my case, I always try to start from scratch. It's very nerve-wracking actually, but it's interesting. — Yoko Ono

Nobody's life is a bed of roses. We all have crosses to bear, and we all just do our best. I would never claim to have the worst situation. There are many widows, and many people dying of AIDS, many people killed in Lebanon, people starving all over the planet. So we have to count our lucky stars. — Yoko Ono

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. — Yoko Ono

Peace is here now. It's just that we don't recognize it. Let's say that 98 percent of people in the world are wanting peace. Now people say, even people from Siberia? Yes. We want world peace. The two percent is really tying to mess it up. It's so sad in a way, because by messing it up what are they going to get? Their children are going to suffer, their grandchildren are going to suffer, and they might even die before something gets good. — Yoko Ono

I trust in my inspiration, really, and that's difficult because sometimes you would rather be technical. And once you empty your mind, empty your brain, it's really incredible. I'm very caring about things that dash into my brain, and I make sure I don't just clog it. — Yoko Ono

I don't think you should always stay calm in a tense situation, because you might not ever confront the problem. Maybe it's better to actually let yourself be tense - and find a solution. — Yoko Ono

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

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. — Yoko Ono

Society was built on male power, and women's power was ... ignored is the best word to describe it I suppose, we have been running society on one power, half a power really. And that's so terrible. The world needs women's power too. — Yoko Ono

Everybody's an artist. Everybody's God. It's just that they're inhibited. — Yoko Ono

If a woman writes about a domestic situation, everyone automatically assumes that it's about her. — Yoko Ono

Cosmetics is a boon to every woman, but a girl's best beauty aid is still a near-sighted man. — Yoko Ono

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. — Yoko Ono

Confusion has become a state of mind, more of less; we're trained to be confused. Quite simply, the people in power are keeping us down, keeping us docile and keeping us consuming with this confusion. It's a cultural confusion and it is deliberate. — Yoko Ono

DAYS THAT I'LL REMEMBER is a lovingly assembled and beautifully written collection of conversations, observations, and memories of music, friendship, and days gone by. It's good to be back again with John Lennon, his beloved Yoko Ono, and his trusted chronicler and friend Jonathan Cott. — Martin Scorsese

I think that all women are witches, in the sense that a witch is a magical being. And a wizard, which is a male version of a witch, is kind of revered, and people respect wizards. But a witch, my god, we have to burn them. It's the male chauvinistic society that we're living in for the longest time, 3,000 years or whatever. And so I just wanted to point out the fact that men and women are magical beings. We are very blessed that way, so I'm just bringing that out. Don't be scared of witches, because we are good witches, and you should appreciate our magical power. — Yoko Ono

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. — Yoko Ono

Yoko [Ono] was well into liberation before I met her. She'd had to fight her way through a man's world - the art world is completely dominated by men - so she was full of revolutionary zeal when we met. — John Lennon

Marriage is a gamble, let's be honest. — Yoko Ono

We don't read people's wishes. The wishes are suppose to be direct communication to the Universe. Your interception will weaken the power of the wish. — Yoko Ono

We get shy about saying things like I love you. Life is so short. It's crazy, that we hesitate to express our true thoughts to each other. — Yoko Ono

Perhaps one feels more pain when parents are there. It's like when you're hungry, you know, it's worse to get a symbol of a cheeseburger than no cheeseburger at all. It doesn't do you any good, you know. — Yoko Ono

There's a big difference between sending your art in a statement or something like that, and sending yourself there. When you send yourself somewhere, then you are sharing your information uncontrollably - like all yourself. — Yoko Ono

Why do they cover Paul's songs but never mine? — Yoko Ono

Marriage is a difficult project. When seven years have passed and all your body's cells have been replaced, you're meant to experience that seven-year itch. — Yoko Ono

When I hear music, my body just starts to move. It has nothing to do with training or anything. That's just me. That's just my body. And I was like that as a child, too. — Yoko Ono

Make your own dream.
That's the Beatles' story, isn't it? That's Yoko's story, that's what I'm saying now. Produce your own dream. If you want to save Peru, go save Peru. It's quite possible to do anything, but not to put it on the leaders and the parking meters. Don't expect Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan or John Lennon or Yoko Ono or Bob Dylan or Jesus Christ to come and do it for you. You have to do it yourself.
That's what the great masters and mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various books that are now called holy and worshipped for the cover of the book and not for what it says, but the instructions are all there for all to see, have always been and always will be.
There's nothing new under the sun. All the roads lead to Rome. And people cannot provide it for you. I can't wake you up. You can wake you up. I can't cure you. You can cure you. — John Lennon

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. — Yoko Ono

I think it's nice to let people know that there is an invisible part of the world. I think there are many people now who are interested in the invisible world. — Yoko Ono

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

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. — Yoko Ono

It's a waste to not say anything with art. — Yoko Ono

I always believed that my work should be unfinished in the sense that I encourage people to add their creativity to it, either conceptually or physically. Back in the 1960s, I was calling for 'Unfinished Music,' number one, and number two, with my artwork - I was taking unfinished work into the gallery. And that's how I was looking at it. — Yoko Ono

Next time you meet a 'foreigner', remember it's only like a window with a different shape to it and the person who's sitting inside is you. — Yoko Ono

I feel sad that he's just a voice now. — Yoko Ono

I have the outsider's vision, which is creating wisdom I can share with the world. The fact that I am misunderstood has always given me an added impetus to work on communication to bridge the gap. — Yoko Ono

I think something that's very important for us to communicate is usually very simple. Like breathing: Breathing is very simple. You don't do a dissonant 9th harmony or something in breathing. You just breathe, you know. I think that's how it is with very important messages. — Yoko Ono

My life has always been unplanned. So when something comes along, I feel like, Why not give it a try? It's fun to experiment like that. — Yoko Ono

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

It's better to dance than to march through life. — Yoko Ono

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. — Yoko Ono

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. — Yoko Ono

Love is an incredibly strong thing, it goes everywhere, it's like water, you can't stop it. Love, once you have it, once you create a kind of pathway for it to come out, it just keeps on coming out. — Yoko Ono

You can't love someone unless you are in an equal position with them. A lot of women have to cling to men out of fear or insecurity, and that's not love - basically that's why women hate men. — Yoko Ono

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

Every time I create something, just before that there's a kind of - you're feeling very low, you're feeling very down and insecure. Then you create and then it's fine. This is the way I observe me doing it. — Yoko Ono

I'm spinning records and I look across the restaurant and I see somebody who looks Asian. And I'm like, "Yo, that looks like Yoko Ono." I'm like, oh, I can just meet - that's going to be great. Then I look carefully and I'm like, "That's not Yoko Ono, that's Bruno Mars." And it was Bruno Mars. That just happened recently. I was bugging out. Because that was totally not Yoko Ono at all. — Talib Kweli

It's better that you're criticized than complimented as a person. — Yoko Ono

Great Art is Great because it inspired you greatly. If it didn't, no matter what the critics, the museums and the galleries say, it's not great art for you. — Yoko Ono

Yoko Ono is someone who's music I've discovered more recently. The current cd rereleases of her albums all had bonus tracks recorded just with a tape recorder and I'm really into these at the moment because they have a great intimate feel. — Marcel Dzama

You can't always be in awe of someone's talent, living with them. — Yoko Ono

I don't really believe in going with somebody to have tea and chat. I don't do that. It's just a waste of time. — Yoko Ono

When I was 4 years old my mother put me into an early music education school. That's where they taught you perfect pitch and harmony and how to write music and all that. At that time, one of the homeworks was to listen to all the sounds and the noise of a day and transfer that into musical notes. — Yoko Ono

I don't have time to listen to anybody's music. I'm making it, you know. — Yoko Ono

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. — Yoko Ono

In the present age when communication is so rapid, we should create a different tradition, traditions are created everyday. Five years now is like 100 years before. We are living in a society that has no history. There's no precedent for this kind of society so we can break the old patterns. — Yoko Ono

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. — Yoko Ono

Power is power. It's energy. And if you get big, big energy, you can use that in a good way. — Yoko Ono

You are water
I'm water
we're all water in different containers
that's why it's so easy to meet
someday we'll evaporate together. — Yoko Ono

Rather than deal with problems in relationships, I've always moved on. That's why I'm one of the very few survivors as a woman, you know. — Yoko Ono

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!" — Yoko Ono

It took me quite a long time to realise that my maleness was cutting off certain areas for Yoko [Ono]. She's a red hot liberationistand was quick to show me where I was going wrong, even though it seemed to me that I was just acting naturally. That's why I'm always interested to know how people who claim to be radical treat women. — John Lennon

I think I'm an observer in a way. And my life was not so - well, my life was bad too - but it's just that I had the sense to cope with it. But it's probably not that easy to cope if you're in a society where you get killed when your husband dies. — Yoko Ono

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. — Yoko Ono

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) — Yoko Ono

I often wish my mother had died so that at least I could get some people's sympathy. But there she was, a perfectly beautiful mother. — Yoko Ono

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. — Yoko Ono

People accuse artists of being narcissists - of course we are! If we don't like ourselves, who's going to like us? — Yoko Ono

I'm just trying to do my best every day, hoping that I have done my best every day, and its very easy in a way, but also it's not that easy. Every day counts. — Yoko Ono

Be kind once a day - even if it's just in your mind. — Yoko Ono

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. — Yoko Ono

If I was a Jewish girl in Hitler's day, I would become his girlfriend. After ten days in bed, he would come to my way of thinking. — Yoko Ono

What is beauty? It's what you love. — Yoko Ono

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

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. — Yoko Ono

I should think that people would be more interested in politics and all that is happening, rather than two lovebirds who are looking to wed. I think it's very nice that in an age when love is so scarce that people are willing to gamble on getting married. — Yoko Ono

Is truth always positive? Of course. Once the truth comes out, you know, it's all right. We're scared that if the truth comes out that it's not all right. It's the other way around. — Yoko Ono

It's a waste of time to think that if you colored a painting red what might have happened if you painted it black. — Yoko Ono

I have only one life, so I want to make sure it's a good one. — Yoko Ono