John Lennon was a man who could annihilate an opponent with a razer-sharp put-down, and fend off all others with his stoic, myopic glare. There was little point in crossing verbal swords with him; he would usualy win.
Intolerant of ignorance and bigotry, John was a broad minded thinker who ingested everything around him, from music, art, books, and magazines, to radio, film, and-one of his pet loves-television. Still, he was a mass of contradictions-a hard-edged cynic who would regularly display a heart of gold, and an alert skeptic who would often leave himself wide open to masters of exploitation. Impulsiveness was one of his chief traits-Beatles producer, George Martin, likened him to someone "driving without a clutch"-and even though he worked extremely hard at his career, John was, by his own admission, inherently lazy. Indeed, on several occasions he asserted that he "would probably still be a bum hanging around Liverpool," if The Beatles hadn't succeeded.
At the same time, John also spent the better part of his life trying to improve himself as a human being, evolving from a physically aggressive youth to a man of peace, from a chauvinist into a househusband. He had, to use his own words, "a grasshopper mind," and to the end of his life he was an interviewer's dream, full of strong opinions and witty insights. After all, nearly everything that John Lennon ever said or wrote for public comsumption made for a great quote.
