Quotes from Leonard Cohen

Don't write about ideas ... write about convictions of the heart.

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

If I spelled out the Principles of Faith I would be barking on the moon.

I stopped stopping and I stopped starting, and I allowed myself to be crushed by ignorance.

Just as art is the concealment of art, laissezfaire is the concealment of tremendous generosity.

Here the destruction is subtle, and there the body is torn. Here the breaking is perceived, and there the dead unaware carry their putrid remains. All trade in filth, carry their filth one to another, all walk the streets as though the ground did not recoil, all stretch their necks to bite the air, as though the breath had not withdrawn. The seed bursts without a blessing, and the harvest is gathered as if it were food.

Come gather the pieces all scattered and lost The lie in what's holy, the light in what's not The story's been written the letter's been sealed You gave me a lily but now it's a field

Forget the perfect offering. Everything is flawed. It's the cracks that let the Light in...

I looked for you in everyone And they called me on that too I lived alone but I was only Coming back to you

S]ongs must be measured by their utility. Any jaunty little tune that can get you from one point to another as you drive, or get you through the dishes, or that can illuminate or dignify your courting, I always appreciate. -interview, 1995

I don't ask for information that I probably wouldn't be able to process even if it were granted to me. --Aug 2016 interview, when asked what might be in store for us after the big sunset

Non passarono molti anni che sua madre cominciò a esercitare gli inalienabili diritti della menopausa. Si mise a indossare in casa a qualsiasi ora una pelliccia e gli occhiali da sole. Prima vi alluse soltanto e poi affermò esplicitamente di aver sacrificato una carriera come pianista concertista. Quando le veniva chiesto per il bene di chi, lei si rifiutava di rispondere e abbassava il termostato.

Each day he lugged a hunk of something precious over to his boredom and once or twice a week when he was granted the tiny grace of distance he perceived that he laboured as his fathers did on someone else's pyramid Thoughts of rebellion Thoughts of injustice New Year's resolutions The seduction of a woman All these he engraved numbly letter by letter Walther PPK-S Serial No. 115142 stolen from one slave by another

Listen to the one who has not been wounded, the one who says, 'It is not good that man should be alone.' Recall your longing to the loneliness where it was born, so that when she appears, she will stand before you, not against you. Refine your longing here, in the small silver music of her preparations, under the low-built shelter of repentance.

Svaki ?ovek govori jezikom svoga oca.

My love is blonde and ancient I met her by the sea she was putting things together and she needed some of me

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

every heart, every heart to love will come but like a refugee.

BREAVMAN KNOWS a girl named Shell whose ears were pierced so she could wear the long filigree earrings. The punctures festered and now she has a tiny scar in each earlobe. He discovered them behind her hair.

I bite my lip. I buy what I'm told: From the latest hit, To the wisdom of old. But I'm always alone. And my heart is like ice. And it's crowded and cold In my secret life.

Pigskin crackling on my thumb, nummy nummy I hate pain.

We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky | and lost among these subway crowds, I try to catch your eye.

We are so lightly here. It is in love we are made. In love we disappear.

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