Leonard Cohen Quotes

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

I've forgotten most of what I've read and, frankly, it never seemed very important to me or to the world.

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

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.

a kite is a victim you are sure of. you love it because it pulls.

Reality is one of the possibilities I cannot afford to ignore

When things get really bad, just raise your glass and stamp your feet and do a little jig. That's about all you can do.

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

I can't run no more with that lawless crowd while the killers in high places say their prayers out loud. But they've summoned, they've summoned up a thundercloud and they're going to hear from me. Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in.

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.

Just to get serious about this thing, you know. One has to be compassionate. It's true that people are up against things, economically and emotionally.

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

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

As soon as anybody does one of my songs, I rejoice. This particular case of all these great singers doing my work - the implications are very rich and the temptation to think of the outcome of these masses of the mainstream injecting my work into the marketplace, it's a very sweet speculation.

Take one step to the side and it's all absurd.

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

I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair, with a love so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere.

It doesn't matter what you do because it's going to happen anyway.

Dream after dream we all lie in each other's arms

I've never thought of myself as a religious person.

You can keep the body as well-oiled and receptive as possible, but whether you're actually going to be able to go for the long haul is really not your own choice.

Only in Canada could somebody with a voice like mine win 'Vocalist of the Year'.

This is the most challenging activity that humans get into, which is love. You know, where we have the sense that we can't live without love. That life has very little meaning without love.

I have nothing against the Queen of England. Even in my heart I never resented her for not being Jackie Kennedy. She is, to my mind, a very gallant lady, victimized by whoever it is who designs the tops of her uniforms.

As the mist leaves no scar On the dark green hill So my body leaves no scar On you and never will

...a young nurse is standing close behind me wondering whether she is being drawn by my power or her charity.

this is every musician's dream, to stand in front of an audience and not have to prove your credentials.

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.

Don't call yourself a secret unless you mean to keep it.

This mental space is occupied and everything is mine.

I feel that, you know, the enormous luck I've had in being able to make a living, and to never have had to have written one word that I didn't want to write, to be able to have satisfied that dictum I set for myself, which was not to work for pay, but to be paid for my work - just to be able to satisfy those standards that I set for myself has been an enormous privilege.

Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove Dance me to the end of love.

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

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

I turned my back on the devil, turned my back on the angel too.

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

I've seen the future and it's murder.

I don't even hate books anymore.

Anything I tell you is an alibi for something else." Then let's be quiet together.

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.

Everytime you grab at love you will lose a snowflake of your memory

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove Dance me to the end of love

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

One is given to self-dramatization from time to time. I intend to live forever.

It's like a bear stumbling into a beehive or a honey cache: I'm stumbling right into it and getting stuck, and it's delicious and it's horrible and I'm in it and it's not very graceful and it's very awkward and it's very painful and yet there's something inevitable about it.

I don't really understand that process called reincarnation but if there is such a thing I'd like to come back as my daughter's dog.

Even without the mushroom cloud still I would have hated Listen I would have done the same things even if there were no death I will not be held like a drunkard under the cold tap of facts I refuse the universal alibi

I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy, golden storm, yes many loved before us, I know we are not new, in city and in forest they smiled like me and you, but now it's come to distances and both of us must try, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that's no way to say goodbye.