Quotes from Leonard Cohen

Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered.

so much of the world is plunged in darkness and chaos...So ring the bells that still can ringForget your perfect offeringThere is a crack in everythingThat's how the light gets in.

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

You live your life as if it's real.......a thousand kisses deep

There's always a group of songs that I'm working at. Some of them are 10 years old, and some of them are just a few weeks old. I'm always trying to adjust these songs to some position where I can bring them to completion.

I speak of a clinical depression that is the background of your entire life, a background of anguish and anxiety, a sense that nothing goes well, that pleasure is unavailable and all your strategies collapse.

Your heart opens and of course you're completely panicked because you're used to guarding this organ with your life.

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.

If I knew where the good songs came from, I'd go there more often.

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.

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

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

The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world.

Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in.

How can I begin anything new with all of yesterday in me?

Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as a secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.

And I'll dance with you in Vienna, I'll be wearing a river's disguise. The hyacinth wild on my shoulder my mouth on the dew of your thighs. And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook, with the photographs there and the moss. And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty, my cheap violin and my cross.

I don't remember lighting this cigarette and I don't remember if I'm here alone or waiting for someone.

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.

If you don't become the ocean, you'll be seasick every day.

Never make a decision when you need to pee.

Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you're tired. You look like you could go on forever. Now come into my arms. You are the image of my beauty .

You go your way I'll go your way too

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