Leonard Cohen Quotes

Some people, it [songwriting] comes faster. Some people, it comes slower.

His vision was just outstanding. If you think of him in the same way as Pele then you would come close.

I will not be held like a drunkard / under the cold tap of facts

I listen to the radio and I like all kinds of music, you know, but I like to hear from people who have been there. Hank Williams has been there.

[Europe has] this tradition of self revelation in popular music. We have it here - it's called Country Western Music... I think that's where the deeper and more complex subjects are treated.

Stunned and still not suffering. Swollen with care and anxiety and still not suffering. Useless, old and full of grief, but still not suffering.

Love is a fire/It burns everyone/It disfigures everyone/It is the world's excuse for being ugly.

I always felt I was scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to get a song together.

You can say that I've grown bitter but of this you can be sure. The rich have get their channels in the bedrooms of the poor. And there's a mighty Judgement coming but I may be wrong.

..you wanted to be the Superman who was never Clark Kent

there's no forsaking what you love no existential leap as witnessed here in time and blood a thousand kisses deep

I bargain now. I offer buttons for his love.

When you're not feeling holy, your loneliness says that you've sinned.

To have [Adam's Cohen] microscopic attention to my work was really a great privilege.

G-d is alive. Magic is afoot. G-d is afoot. Magic is alive.

If you're lucky, you can keep the vehicle healthy and responsive over the years. If you're lucky, your own intentions have very little to do with this.

I won't comment on what Bob Dylan said, but I will comment on his receiving the Nobel Prize, which to me is like pinning a medal on Mount Everest for being the highest mountain.

My interest in this pack of failures betrays my character.

Everyone has a kind of magical system that they employ in the hopes that this will open up the channels.

A sip of wine, a cigarette, And then it’s time to go. I tidied up the kitchenette; I tuned the old banjo. I’m wanted at the traffic-jam. They’re saving me a seat.

I almost went to bed without remembering the four white violets I put in the button-hole of your green sweater and how i kissed you then and you kissed me shy as though I’d never been your lover

I alwaysthought of myself as a competent, minor poet. I know who I'm up against.

I lit a thin green candle to make you jealous of me, but the room just filled up with mosquitoes.

And what can I tell you, my brother, my killer, what can I possibly say? I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you, I'm glad you stood in my way

It doesn't matter how anything happens.

When you're younger, you do have that thing that you were talking about where the mouth goes dry. I mean you have reactions, and you do fall in love.

Women stand for the objective world for a man. They stand for the thing that you're not and that's what you always reach for in a song.

I don't think you can write novels on the road. You need a certain stability.

Probably all cultures, certainly Western culture, always have been violent.

Dear Hitler Take away the torches I'm not guilty I had to have this

I've expressed my gratitude to my son many times. And his career is far from undistinguished, and it was a great privilege to have someone of this skill bringing this album to conclusion.

Coroner's inquest: death by drowning. And he hasn't been to the sea-shore in ten years.

We all need that experience of forgetting who you are. Forgetting who you are is such a delicious experience and so frightening that we're in this conflicted predicament.

I’ll be marching through the morning, Marching through the night, Moving 'cross the borders Of My Secret Life.

It is different [to perform in Israel] because it arises from very deep wells of affiliation.

There are a few things that deal with passion. There's Prozac.

I looked into [Prozac]. I must say that it is certainly a wonder drug.

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded, Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed, Everybody knows that the war is over, Everybody knows the good guys lost.

At first first nothing will happen to us and later on it will happen to us again.

My sense of proprietorship has been so weak that actually I didn't pay attention and I lost the copyrights on a lot of the songs.

If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask me to. And if you want another kind of love I'll wear a mask for you.

Most of our distractions are designed to invite us away from this recognition, which is a good idea.

The wars they will be fought again The holy dove be caught again bought and sold and bought again; the dove is never free.

The obstacles are great and the suffering is great and people have got to make a living.

Show me slowly what I onlyknow the limits ofDance me to the end of love

... i didn't fall in love of courseit's never up to youbut she was walking back and forthand i was passing through

There is a crack in everything.That's how the light gets in.

first of all nothing will happen and a little laternothing will happen again

so much of the world is plunged in darkness and chaos...So ring the bells that still can ringForget your perfect offeringThere is a crack in everythingThat’s how the light gets in.

Who could have foretoldthe heart grows oldfrom touching others