“John Lennon was many things to many people.”

Middlebury College Address (2004)
Context: John Lennon wrote a line that I’m sure has been used in many commencement addresses. “Life is what happens to you while you’re making other plans.” … There is really no way of knowing where your life’s journey will take you. I never would have predicted the fabric of my life would have evolved into the rich, complex design I enjoy and am challenged by daily. My work, the achievements for which I am receiving such a great honor here today, my purpose in life, have been born out of a set of unplanned circumstances, in large part, but not completely, circumstances beyond my control. I never anticipated being a caregiver for my spouse at the age of 34. I don’t think I ever dreamt I would help run a foundation that raises money for biomedical research and people with disabilities.

Blood Meridian (1985)

More on why his favorite singers are mostly women

Rolling Stone interview (2005)

General Conclusions, Part I : Containing Considerations addressed to Unbelievers and especially to Mr. Gibbon
An History of the Corruptions of Christianity (1782)

"Robertson Davies" [by Paul Soles]
Conversations with Robertson Davies (1989)
Context: I expect that Hell is very heavily populated with just exactly that sort of person [who feels he's accomplished all his goals early in life] because, you know, somebody who fears that he has exhausted what there is for him to do and what he can do at thirty-five, is a fool. What he means is that he's become the sales manager of International Widgets or some wretched thing. That's not a life, that's not a thing that should occupy a man. People drive themselves terribly hard at these jobs, and they develop a sort of mystique about something which does not admit of a mystique. A thing to have a mystique must necessarily have many aspects, many corridors, many avenues, many things that open up. Well, this is not to be found in the business world, and I've known a lot of first-class businessmen and they all tell you this. People have told me that in their particular business there's nothing to be learned that an intelligent man can't learn in eighteen months. But if you've learned it in eighteen months and if you're exhausted by the time you're thirty-five, it's nobody's fault but your own if you haven't found something else to do.

Poor Richard's Almanack (1736), http://www.rarebookroom.org/Control/frapos/index.html November
Poor Richard's Almanack

Quotations by 60 Greatest Indians, 1 December 2013, Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology http://resourcecentre.daiict.ac.in/eresources/iresources/quotations.html,

Source: Start with Why: How Great Leaders Inspire Everyone to Take Action