Quotes from Leonard Cohen

I never had the sense that there was an end: that there was a retirement or that there was a jackpot.

I continually blacken pages and scribble away, so I always have a number of songs that are half-finished.

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

I didn't want to write for pay. I wanted to be paid for what I write.

I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin.

I was born in a suit.

As I approach the end of my life, I have even less and less interest in examining what have got to be very superficial evaluations or opinions about the significance of one's life or one's work. I was never given to it when I was healthy, and I am less given to it now.

I read with some amusement my reputation as a ladies' man. My friends are amused by that, too, because they know my life.

The dreamers ride against the men of action. Oh see the men of action falling back.

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

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.

Act the way you'd like to be and soon you'll be the way you act.

Raise a million filters and the rain will not be clean, until the longing for it be refined in deep confession.

Games are nature's most beautiful creation

Don't dwell on what has passed away or what is yet to be.

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

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

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

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 .

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

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.

Success is survival.

To every people the land is given on condition. Perceived or not, there is a Covenant, beyond the constitution, beyond sovereign guarantee, beyond the nation's sweetest dreams of itself.

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