Quote Investigator traces the saying to poet and singer-songwriter Rod McKuen, who closed his public appearances by telling audiences “it doesn’t matter who you love or how you love, but that you love” — reported in a New York Times profile of 4 April 1971. The longer five-clause version carrying Lennon’s name first surfaces in a Usenet message of 28 February 1997, and QI concludes that, on current evidence, Lennon did not make the remark.
“It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love, or how you love, it matters only that you love” Rod McKuen, quoted by William Murray in The New York Times, 4 April 1971. The longer version — "It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love, or how you love, it matters only that you love" — is an anonymous elaboration first seen in February 1997; Quote Investigator finds no evidence John Lennon said it. Via Quotle.info. · Verbatim: “It doesn't matter who you love or how you love, but that you love.”
⚠ The slide-ready mistake: crediting this to John Lennon. Use the credit shown above instead.
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? We couldn’t establish where this was first published, so there’s no rights status to give. Credit it as shown above — just don’t present it as public domain, and get permission for commercial or published reuse.
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In context
Evoking the world of Rod McKuen — American poet, singer-songwriter and composer. Theme: "It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love, or how you love, it matters only that you love". Atmospheric and restrained, cinematic directional light, a muted period-appropriate palette, fine grain and texture. Compose with generous empty space for the quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
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Minimalist editorial slide for the quote "It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love, or how you love, it matters only that you love". Clean background, a single muted accent color, generous negative space, subtle paper or linen texture, no literal illustration — let the words carry it. Reserve clear space for a serif quote and a small credit line. No lettering in the image itself.
Provenance
Where the line actually comes from
Popular wording
An anonymous elaboration; earliest known appearance February 1997, credited to John Lennon
Documented origin
“Says Rod McKuen: ‘It Doesn’t Matter Who You Love or How You Love, But That You Love!’”
Published
The New York Times, 4 April 1971, by William Murray (start page SM32, quote page SM33)
Speaker
Rod McKuen (1933–2015), quoted in Murray’s profile
at the end of every public appearance recently, he’s been admonishing his listeners that ‘it doesn’t matter who you love or how you love, but that you love.’
1971 · New York Times
William Murray’s New York Times profile of Rod McKuen, 4 April 1971, as transcribed by Quote Investigator ↗. This nine-word sign-off — not the five-clause version — is the earliest instance QI located.
4 April 1971. Quote Investigator’s earliest citation is a New York Times profile of Rod McKuen by William Murray, which reports that McKuen had been ending every public appearance by telling listeners “it doesn’t matter who you love or how you love, but that you love” (Quote Investigator ↗).
1972–1979. QI documents McKuen repeating the sign-off for years — the Lowell Sun on 16 June 1972, The Evening Independent on 31 October 1972, and the Reading Eagle on 7 January 1979, where he added “and you’re not living unless you’re loving” (Quote Investigator ↗).
28 February 1997. The expanded, all-capitals version — “IT MATTERS NOT WHO YOU LOVE WHERE YOU LOVE WHY YOU LOVE WHEN YOU LOVE or HOW YOU LOVE, IT MATTERS ONLY THAT YOU LOVE” — appears in a Usenet message signed “John Lennon,” with no supporting evidence (Quote Investigator ↗).
Absent from the Lennon record. The line appears nowhere on Wikiquote’s John Lennon page ↗ — not among his sourced quotations, and not even among the entries collected there as misattributed or disputed.
The exact wording that circulates under Lennon’s name has no identifiable author — it is an anonymous online elaboration first seen in 1997 — so no copyright status can honestly be asserted for it. The saying it was built from is a different matter: Rod McKuen’s spoken line as reported in The New York Times of 4 April 1971 is well inside the copyright term, and reuse of that article’s text sits with the newspaper and McKuen’s estate.
Rights status is our research, not legal advice — and copyright varies by country and edition. For commercial or published use, confirm with the rightsholder. See terms.
Fact-check
How Lennon’s name got attached
This is a textbook magnet-name swap: a real line by a once-enormous but now less-remembered poet was expanded, tidied into a symmetrical five-clause cadence, and re-signed with the most quotable name in 1960s counterculture.
✕
The popular five-clause versionJohn Lennon No evidence
Quote Investigator states plainly that “based on current evidence Lennon did not make the remark under investigation.” The wording’s earliest known appearance is a Usenet message of 28 February 1997 — more than sixteen years after Lennon was killed in December 1980 — and it is offered there with no citation of any kind (Quote Investigator ↗).
✕
A shortened television variantSally Jessy Raphael Later user
QI records an Orange County Register item of 23 April 1995 in which the talk-show host used the closing line “It matters not who you love but that you love” without attribution — a plausible bridge between McKuen’s wording and the “it matters not” phrasing of the meme (Quote Investigator ↗).
✓The person who actually said it was Rod McKuen, and what he said was shorter: “it doesn’t matter who you love or how you love, but that you love” — documented in The New York Times on 4 April 1971, and repeated from his stage for the rest of the decade (Quote Investigator ↗).
Context
Why a McKuen line ended up as a Lennon line
Rod McKuen was, in Wikipedia’s summary, “one of the best-selling poets in the United States during the late 1960s” — more than 1,500 songs, roughly 200 albums, over 100 million records sold, and the English words to Jacques Brel songs that became standards. He was famous enough in 1971 that The New York Times built a profile around this one sentence and put it in the headline.
That kind of fame does not always survive its decade. By the time the sentiment resurfaced online in the 1990s — longer, more symmetrical, and stripped of its context — McKuen’s name no longer did the work it once had. Lennon’s did. The elaboration reads like something he might have said, which is exactly the condition under which a quote stops needing a source.
It doesn’t matter who you love or how you love, but that you love.
The wording drift, step by step
Quote Investigator’s trail runs 1971 → 1972 → 1979 for McKuen, then 1995 for the shortened Sally Jessy Raphael variant, then 1997 for the full Lennon-signed version. The sentence grew as it travelled: McKuen named two variables, who and how; the internet version names five, adding where, why and when.
One detail worth keeping straight: McKuen’s own extended version, recorded in the Reading Eagle on 7 January 1979, ends “and you’re not living unless you’re loving” — not with the “it matters only that you love” clause that the meme turns on.
Explore
Filed under
More provenance-checked quotes on the same theme, each with its reuse status.
1933–2015 · American poet, singer-songwriter and composer
Rod McKuen (born Oakland, 29 April 1933; died Beverly Hills, 29 January 2015) was one of the best-selling poets in American history, with collections such as Stanyan Street & Other Sorrows and Listen to the Warm reaching an audience most poets never see. He wrote more than 1,500 songs and released around 200 albums, selling over 100 million records, and his English versions of Jacques Brel’s songs turned several of them into international hits. Critics were often unkind about the verse; audiences were not, and for a stretch of the late 1960s and 1970s his readings filled concert halls — which is where this sentence was heard, night after night, as his closing line.
For writers & researchers
Cite this
Cite this page
Murray, William. “Says Rod McKuen: ‘It Doesn’t Matter Who You Love or How You Love, But That You Love!’” The New York Times, April 4, 1971, SM32–SM33. Earliest instance located in Quote Investigator, “Quote Origin: It Doesn’t Matter Who You Love or How You Love, But That You Love,” February 21, 2016, https://quoteinvestigator.com/2016/02/21/love-who/.
This verification page
Quotle.info. “Who really said ‘It matters not who you love, where you love, why you love, when you love, or how you love, it matters only that you love’?” Last verified 6 Aug 2026. https://quotle.info/who-said/it-matters-not-who-you-love-where-you-love-why-you-love/