Quotes from Leonard Cohen

Yes, I just might go to sleep but kindly leave, leave the future, leave it open

I'm stubborn as those garbage bags That time cannot decay

Behold the gates of mercy in arbitrary space.

One million candles burning for the help that never came

Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything. That's how the light gets in.

And all I've said was just instead Of coming back to you.

I don't have any sense or urgency about any of my writing, actually. I don't think mankind will be damaged if I don't put out a new album or a new book.

The basic function of popular music is to create an environment for courting, lovemaking, and doing the dishes. It's useful because it addresses the heart in the midst of all these activities, and it will always be useful in this very important way.

Torah values are the ones that inform my life.

All the lousy little poets coming around trying to sound like Charles Manson.

Shouldering your loneliness like a gun that you will not learn to aim, you stumble into this movie house then you climb, you climb into the frame.

I think that Bob Dylan knows this more than all of us: you don't write the songs anyhow. So if you're lucky, you can keep the vehicle healthy and responsive over the years. If you're lucky, your own intentions have very little to do with this.

I can work on a verse for a very long time before realising it's not any good and then, and only then, can I discard it.

I would like to work with Pat [ Leonard] in any capacity. I would love to hear his versions.

To have [Adam's Cohen] microscopic attention to my work was really a great privilege.

The big change is the proximity to death.

There are writers who are great visionaries, who can depict huge movements - things like that. They're the great writers. I'm just the other kind.

This mental space is occupied and everything is mine.

You lose your grip, and then you slip into the Masterpiece.

Music is the emotional life of most people.

We all need that experience of forgetting who you are. Forgetting who you are is such a delicious experience and so frightening that we're in this conflicted predicament.

May you be surrounded by friends and family, and if this is not your lot, may the blessings find you in your solitude.

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

Friend, when you speak this carefully I know it is because you don't know what to say.