Quotes from Leonard Cohen

There is a religious hallelujah, but there are many other ones[....] When one looks at the world, there's only one thing to say, and it's hallelujah. That's the way it is.

O God, make me poor enough to love yurd diamond in the rough, or in my failure let me see, my greed raised to mistery. Do you hate the one who must turn your world all to dust? Do you hate the ones who ask if Creation wears a mask God beyond the God I name, if mask and fire are the same, repair the seam my love leaps through , uncreated fire to pursue. Network of cretated fire, maim my love and my desire. Make me poor so I may be, servant in the world I see

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

Listen to a name so private it can burn hear it said aloud and learn and learn History is a needle for putting men asleep anointed with the poison of all they want to keep Now

All things can be done whisper museum ovens of a war that freedom won.

Maybe there's a God above But all I've ever learned from love Was how to shoot at someone who outdrew you It's not a cry you can hear at night It's not somebody who has seen the light It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah

The wretched beast is tame I don't need a lover So blow out the flame...

I am this thing that needs to sing.

I am not the one you are looking for. You are not the one I've stopped looking for.

If you are the dealer Let me out of the game If you are the healer I'm broken and lame If thine is the glory Mine must be the shame You want it darker We kill the flame

When my heart is broken as usual over someone's evanescent beauty and design after design they fade like kingdoms with no writing

I want to summon the eyes and hidden mouths of stone and light and water to testify against you.

Every soul is like a minnow Every mind is like a shark

Refine your longing here, in the small silver music of her preparations, under the low-built shelter of repentance.

And when the hunger for your touch Rises from the hunger, You whisper, "You have loved enough, Now let me me the Lover.

Whoever is in your life, those who harm you, those who help you; those whom you know and those whom you do not know – let them off the hook, help them off the hook. Recognize the hook.

Blessed are you who, among the numberless swept away in terror, permitted a few to suffer carefully.

Don't matter if you're rich and strong Don't matter if you're weak Don't matter if you write a song The nightingales repeat Don't matter if it's nine to five Or timeless and unique You ditch your life to stay alive A thousand kisses deep

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

AS THE MIST LEAVES NO SCAR As the mist leaves no scar On the dark green hill, So my body leaves no scar On you, nor ever will. When wind and hawk encounter, What remains to keep? So you and I encounter, Then turn, then fall to sleep. As many nights endure Without a moon or star, So will we endure When one is gone and far.

No juice to be hopeless, no heart to be sad. I tried in the wind, tried in the sand.

Dear Reader, please forgive me if I have wasted your time.

JINGLE To show the fat brain rotting like stumps of brown teeth in an old bright throat is the final clever thrill of summer lads all dead with love. So here is mine, torn and stretched for the sun, to be used for a drum or a tambourine, to be scratched with poetry by Kafka's machine

TAKE THIS LONGING