Leonard Cohen Quotes

The duty of lovers is to tarnish the Golden Rule ~ Leonard Cohen

I was 15 when I first became deeply touched by the rhythm and structure of words. ~ Leonard Cohen

You win a while, and then it's done - Your little winning streak. ~ Leonard Cohen

And clenching your fist for the ones like us Who are oppressed by the figures of beauty. ~ Leonard Cohen

Let judges secretly despair of justice: their verdicts will be more acute. Let generals secretly despair of triumph; killing will be defamed. Let priests secretly despair of faith: their compassion will be true. ~ Leonard Cohen

Yeah I missed you since the place got wrecked
By the winds of change and the weeds of sex
looks like freedom but it feels like death
it's something in between, I guess
it's closing time. ~ Leonard Cohen

In My Secret Life"
"I saw you this morning,
you were moving so fast.
Can't seem to loosen my grip
On the past.
And I miss you so much,
there's no one in sight.
And we're still making love
In my secret life.
I smile when I am angry,
I cheat and I lie,
I do what I have to do
to get by,
In my secret life. ~ Leonard Cohen

We're in a world where there's famine and hunger and people are dodging bullets and having their nails pulled out in dungeons so it's very hard for me to place any high value on the work that I do to write a song. Yeah, I work hard but compared to what? ~ Leonard Cohen

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. ~ Leonard Cohen

You know, Leonard Cohen is amazing, just a mastermind, and really one of the great geniuses of our time. ~ Jake Shimabukuro

I loved you for a long, long time
I know this love is real
It don't matter how it all went wrong
That don't change the way I feel
And I can't believe that time's
Gonna heal this wound I'm speaking of
There ain't no cure for love ~ Leonard Cohen

When I have not rage or sorrow, and you depart from me, then I am most afraid. When the belly is full, and the mind has its sayings, then I fear for my soul; I rush to you as a child at night breaks into its parents' room. Do not forget me in my satisfaction. When the heart grins at itself, the world is destroyed. And I am found alone with the husks and the shells. Then the dangerous moment comes: I am too great to ask for help. I have other hopes. I legislate from the fortress of my disappointments, with a set jaw. Overthrow this even terror with a sweet remembrance: when I was with you, when my soul delighted you, when I was what you wanted. My heart sings of your longing for me, and my thoughts climb down to marvel at your mercy. I do not fear as you gather up my days. Your name is the sweetness of time, and you carry me close into the night, speaking consolations, drawing down lights from the sky, saying, See how the night has no terror for one who remembers the Name. ~ Leonard Cohen

Maybe there's a god above but the only thing I learned from love was how to shoot at somebody who outdrew you. ~ Leonard Cohen

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

The cutting of the gem has to be finished before you can see whether it shines. ~ Leonard Cohen

You who build these altars now to sacrifice these children , you must not do it anymore. A scheme is not a vision and you never have been tempted by a demon or a god . ~ Leonard Cohen

And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook, with the photographs there and the moths. ~ Leonard Cohen

Here's to the few who forgive what you do, and the fewer who don't even care ~ Leonard Cohen

All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them ~ Leonard Cohen

Fare thee well my nightingale, I lived but to be near you. Thow you are singing somewhere still I can no longer hear you. ~ Leonard Cohen

I dreamed about you baby. It was just the other night. Most of you was naked Ah, but some of you was light. ~ Leonard Cohen

I'm blackening pages, but I don't know if it's writing. ~ Leonard Cohen

I showed my heart to the doctor/
He said I just had to quit ~ Leonard Cohen

Games are nature's most beautiful creation ~ Leonard Cohen

I'm not looking for another
As I wander in my time ~ Leonard Cohen

I remember what Ben Jonson said: 'I've studied all the philosophies and all the theologies but cheerfulness keeps breaking through. ~ Leonard Cohen

When we are touched by a song, it is because the artist cannot hide himself. ~ Leonard Cohen

Maybe there's a God above,
As for me, all I've ever seemed to learn from love
Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you.
Yeah but it's not a complaint that you hear tonight,
It's not the laughter of someone who claims to have seen the light
No it's a cold and it's a very lonely Hallelujah. ~ Leonard Cohen

May everyone live, And may everyone die. Hello, my love, And my love, Goodbye. ~ Leonard Cohen

When he puts his mouth against her shoulder
she is uncertain whether her shoulder
has given or received the kiss.
All her flesh is like a mouth. ~ Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen and Nick Cave know best. Although I wear a lot of jeans, I've been told that Nick Cave doesn't own a pair and wouldn't be caught dead in denim. ~ Matt Berninger

-You know how to call me
although such a noise now
would only confuse the air
Neither of us can forget
the steps we danced
the words you stretched
to call me out of dust
Yes I long for you
not just as a leaf for weather
or vase for hands
but with a narrow human longing
that makes a man refuse
any fields but his own
I wait for you at an
unexpected place in your journey
like the rusted key
or the feather you do not pick up.-

-I WILL NEVER FIND THE FACES
FOR ALL GOODBYES I'VE MADE.-


For Anyone Dressed in Marble
The miracle we all are waiting for
is waiting till the Parthenon falls down
and House of Birthdays is a house no more
and fathers are unpoisoned by renown.
The medals and the records of abuse
can't help us on our pilgrimage to lust,
but like whips certain perverts never use,
compel our flesh in paralysing trust.
I see an orphan, lawless and serene,
standing in a corner of the sky,
body something like bodies that have been,
but not the scar of naming in his eye.
Bred close to the ovens, he's burnt inside.
Light, wind, cold, dark -- they use him like a bride.


I Had It for a Moment

I had it for a moment
I knew why I must thank you
I saw powerful governing men in black suits
I saw them undressed
in the arms of young mistresses
the men more nake ~ Leonard Cohen

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

As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder. ~ Leonard Cohen

I went to Coachella once, and it was only to go see Leonard Cohen. I got in the car and sat through all the crazy traffic in L.A. to get there - instead of a two hour drive, it takes, like, six hours. Then I watched his set and turned around and left. I just so wanted to see him perform in the desert. ~ Hannah Simone

Rejection hurts so much because we take it as a damning judgement passed not merely on our physical appeal but on our entire selves, and by extension (at this stage we're crying into our pillow, as something by Bach or Leonard Cohen plays on the stereo) on our very right to exist. 2. ~ Alain De Botton

I loved you when you opened like a lily to the heat; you see I'm just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet who loved you with his frozen love, his second hand physique, with all he is and all he was a thousand kisses deep. ~ Leonard Cohen

Why don't you try to do without him, why don't you try to live alone? Do you really need his hands for your passion? Do you really need his heart for your throne? Do you need his labor for your baby? Do you need his beast for the bone? Do you need to hold a leash to be a lady? I know that you can make it, you can make it on your own. ~ Leonard Cohen

You don't know me from the wind
you never will, you never did
I'm the little jew who wrote the Bible.
I've seen the nations rise and fall
I've heard their stories, heard them all
but love's the only engine of survival. ~ Leonard Cohen

When it all comes down to dust I will kill you if I must , I will help you if I can. When it all comes down to dust I will help you if I must, I will kill you if I can. ~ Leonard Cohen

And this is our time-keeper, with a passion for percussion ~ Leonard Cohen

My interest in this pack of failures betrays my character. ~ Leonard Cohen

Pay attention to the cracks, because that's where the light gets in. ~ Leonard Cohen

We've got to learn to love appearances. ~ Leonard Cohen

Lets sing another song, boys/ this one has grown old and bitter. ~ Leonard Cohen

So the great affair is over but whoever would have guessed
it would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed
It's like our visit to the moon or to that other star
I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far. ~ Leonard Cohen

If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn
they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem. ~ Leonard Cohen

I didn't kill myself
when things went wrong
I didn't turn
to drugs or teaching
I tried to sleep
but when I couldn't sleep
I learned to write
I learned to write
what might be read
on nights like this
by one like me ~ Leonard Cohen

It was a dance of masks and every mask was perfect because every mask was a real face and every face was a
real mask so there was no mask and there was no face for there was but one dance in which there was but
one mask but one true face which was the same and which was a thing without a name which changed and
changed into itself over and over. ~ Leonard Cohen

This civil action is another case of a tragedy that has become all too familiar in the music industry: a business manager and professional advisers exploit an immensely talented artist's loyalty and trust through greed, self-dealing, concealment, knowing misrepresentation and reckless disregard for professional fiduciary duties. ~ Leonard Cohen

The flowers that I left in the ground,
that I did not gather for you,
today I bring them all back,
to let them grow forever,
not in poems or marble,
but where they fell and rotted.

And the ships in their great stalls,
huge and transitory as heroes,
ships I could not captain,
today I bring them back
to let them sail forever,
not in model or ballad,
but where they were wrecked and scuttled.

And the child on whose shoulders I stand,
whose longing I purged
with public, kingly discipline,
today I bring him back
to languish forever,
not in confession or biography,
but where he flourished,
growing sly and hairy.

It is not malice that draws me away,
draws me to renunciation, betrayal:
it is weariness, I go for weariness of thee,
Gold, ivory, flesh, love, God, blood, moon-
I have become the expert of the catalogue.

My body once so familiar with glory,
My body has become a museum:
this part remembered because of someone's mouth,
this because of a hand,
this of wetness, this of heat.

Who owns anything he has not made?
With your beauty I am as uninvolved
as with horses' manes and waterfalls.
This is my last catalogue.
I breathe the breathless
I love you, I love you -
and let you move forever. ~ Leonard Cohen

How Could I Have Doubted

I stopped looking for you
I stopped waiting for you
I stopped dying for you
and I started dying for myself
I aged rapidly
I became fat in the face
and soft in the gut
and I forgot that I'd ever loved you
I was old
I had no focus, no mission
I wandered around eating and buying
bigger and bigger clothes
and I forgot why I hated
every long moment that was mine to fill
Why did you come back to me tonight
I can't even get off this chair
Tears run down my cheeks
I am in love again
I can live like this ~ Leonard Cohen

We did no train ourselves to receive, because we believed there wasn't anything to receive and we could not endure with this belief. ~ Leonard Cohen

Does anybody have a cigarette? I'm looking forward to that first smoke. I've been looking forward to [it] for about 30 years. ~ Leonard Cohen

And most people have a woman in their heart, most men have a woman in their heart and most women have a man in their heart. ~ Leonard Cohen

I've seen the future and it's murder. ~ Leonard Cohen

Your body will never be familiar. ~ Leonard Cohen

German puppets
burnt the Jews
Jewish puppets
did not choose
Puppet vultures
eat the dead
Puppet corpses
they are fed
Puppet winds and
puppet waves
Puppet sailors
in their graves
Puppet flower
Puppet stem
Puppet Time
dismantles them
Puppet me and
puppet you
Puppet German
Puppet Jew
Puppet presidents
command
puppet troops to
burn the land
Puppet fire
puppet flames
feed on all the
puppet names
Puppet lovers
in their bliss
turn away from
all of this
Puppet reader
shakes his head
takes his puppet
wife to bed
Puppet night
comes down to say
the epilogue to
puppet day ~ Leonard Cohen

better than wild
is secretly wild ~ Leonard Cohen

After a while, if you are sufficiently bored or unemployed, you may want to read it from cover to cover. ~ Leonard Cohen

And I had not much of a voice. I didn't play that great guitar either. ~ Leonard Cohen

In Montreal spring is like an autopsy. Everyone wants to see the inside of the frozen mammoth. Girls rip off their sleeves and the flesh is sweet and white, like wood under green bark. From the streets a sexual manifesto rises like an inflating tire, the winter has not killed us again! ~ Leonard Cohen

I would love to work with Leonard Cohen, Tom Waits, B.B. King. I'd love to do something with Arctic Monkeys, Miles Kane, and The Last Shadow Puppets. If I got a call from Juliette Lewis or PJ Harvey, or Chrissie Hynde, that'd be a thrill. ~ Imelda May

Except for a couple of hours
in the morning
which I passed in the company
of a sage
I stayed in bed
without food
only a few mouthfuls of water
"you are a fine looking old man"
I said to myself in the mirror
"and what is more
you have the correct attitude
You don't care if it ends
or if it goes on
And as for the women
and the music
there will be plenty of that
in Paradise"
Then I went to the Mosque
of Memory
to express my gratitude ~ Leonard Cohen

A rat is more alive than a turtle.
A turtle is slow, cold, mechanical, nearly a toy, a shell with legs. Their deaths didn't count. But a white rat is quick and warm in its envelope of skin ~ Leonard Cohen

Your servant here, he has been told
to say it clear, to say it cold:
It's over, it ain't going
any further
And now the wheels of heaven stop
you feel the devil's riding crop
Get ready for the future:
it is murder ~ Leonard Cohen

I followed the course
From chaos to art
Desire the horse
Depression the cart ~ Leonard Cohen

Now I need your hidden love,
I'm cold as a new razor blade.
You left when I told you I was curious…
I never said that I was brave.

from "So Long Marianne ~ Leonard Cohen

You have money, fame, youth, beauty, talent. That's a good start ... for feeling good. ~ Leonard Cohen

We're always experiencing joy or sadness. But there are lots of people who've closed down. And there are times in one's life when one has to close down just to regroup. ~ Leonard Cohen

She was made of flesh and eyelashes. ~ Leonard Cohen

No penance serves to renew them, no massive transfusions of trust. Why not even revenge can undo them, so twisted these vows and so crushed. ~ Leonard Cohen

A woman watches her body uneasily, as though it were an unreliable ally in the battle for love. ~ Leonard Cohen

Rust rust rust in the engines of love and time ~ Leonard Cohen

Crazy to Love You"

I had to go crazy to love you
Had to go down to the pit
Had to do time in the tower
Now I'm too tired to quit

I had to go crazy to love you
You who were never the one
Whom I chased through the souvenir heartache
My braids and my blouse all undone

Sometimes I'd head for the highway
I'm old and the mirrors don't lie
But crazy has places to hide me
Deeper than saying goodbye

I had to go crazy to love you
Had to let everything fall
Had to be people I hated
Had to be no one at all

Tired of choosing desire
I've been saved by a blessed fatigue
The gates of commitment unwired
And nobody trying to leave

Sometimes I'd head for the highway
I'm old and the mirrors don't lie
But crazy had places to hide me
Deeper than saying goodbye ~ Leonard Cohen

The winter has not killed usagain! ~ Leonard Cohen

It's hard to hold the hand of anyone who is reaching for the sky just to surrender ~ Leonard Cohen

When you stop thinking about yourself all the time, a certain sense of repose overtakes you. ~ Leonard Cohen

In dreams the truth is learned that all good works are done in the absence of a caress. ~ Leonard Cohen

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

How bitter were
the Prozac pills
of the last
few hundred mornings ~ Leonard Cohen

If only my genitals didn't float
When I relaxed in the bath
And we both looked down and we both agreed
It's stupid to be a man ~ Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen can give you "Leonard Cohen" - the self-deprecating wit, the slow, considered speech, the perfectly-honed anecdote - Tom Waits is far more comfortable giving a journalist "Tom Waits" the character, whose conversation is really a series of strange tales, learned or ad-libbed. ~ Sylvie Simmons

It's four in the morning, the end of december
I'm writing you now just to see if you're better. ~ Leonard Cohen

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

My animal howls
My angel's upset
But I'm not allowed
A trace of regret ~ Leonard Cohen

Israel, and you who call yourself Israel, the Church that calls itself Israel, and the revolt that calls itself Israel, and every nation chosen to be a nation - none of these lands is yours, all of you are thieves of holiness, all of you at war with Mercy. ~ Leonard Cohen

The crumbs of love that you offer me
They're the crumbs I've left behind
Your pain is no credential here
It's just the shadow, shadow of my wound ~ Leonard Cohen

The silver knives are flashing in that tired old cafe ... ~ Leonard Cohen

We used to play music for fun. Much more than now. Now nobody picks up a guitar unless they're paid for it. ~ Leonard Cohen

Marita,
Please find me,
I am almost 30 ~ Leonard Cohen

Well, I've been waiting, I was sure
we'd meet between the trains we're waiting for
I think it's time to board another
Please understand, I never had a secret chart
to get me to the heart of this
or any other matter ~ Leonard Cohen

Follow me, the wise man said, but he walked behind. ~ Leonard Cohen

I salute you
Brave spirit
Who has swallowed so much
And tasted so little. ~ Leonard Cohen

Here is your cross, Your nails and your hill; And here is your love, That lists where it will ~ Leonard Cohen

We made a little garden
in the middle of L.A.
so our hearts
they wouldn't harden & our spirits
they could play ~ Leonard Cohen

BLESSED ARE YOU WHO HAS given each man a shield of loneliness so that he cannot forget you. You are the truth of loneliness, and only your name addresses it. Strengthen my loneliness that I may be healed in your name, which is beyond all consolations that are uttered on this earth. Only in your name can I stand in the rush of time, only when this loneliness is yours can I lift my sins toward your mercy. ~ Leonard Cohen

It's a depressing habit you have of loving to sneeze and of eating apples as if they were juicier for you and being the first one to exclaim how good the movie is. You depress people. We like apples too. ~ Leonard Cohen

A community is an alibi for the failure of individual love. ~ Leonard Cohen

A heavy burden lifted from my soul,
I heard that love was out of my control. ~ Leonard Cohen