Quotes from Leonard Cohen

My friends are gone and my hair is grey. I ache in places I used to play. And I'm crazy for love but I'm not coming on. I'm just paying my rent every day in the tower of song.

Maybe there's a god above but the only thing I learned from love was how to shoot at somebody who outdrew you.

I've always been into self-dramatization. I intend to live forever.

I think the term poet is a very exalted term and should be applied to a man at the end of his work. When he looks back over the body of his work and he's written poetry then let the verdict be that he's a poet.

We're in a world where there's famine and hunger and people are dodging bullets and having their nails pulled out in dungeons so it's very hard for me to place any high value on the work that I do to write a song. Yeah, I work hard but compared to what?

I'm never sure why I do anything, to tell you the truth.

I never really liked poetry readings; I liked to read poetry by myself, but I liked singing, chanting my lyrics to this jazz group.

I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That's what sitting on your ass does to your face.

Everytime you grab at love you will lose a snowflake of your memory

When you're younger, you do have that thing that you were talking about where the mouth goes dry. I mean you have reactions, and you do fall in love.

If your life is a leaf that the seasons tear off and condemn they will bind you with love that is graceful and green as a stem.

I am not the one who loves - It's love that chooses me.

Love is a fire/It burns everyone/It disfigures everyone/It is the world's excuse for being ugly.

I bargain now. I offer buttons for his love.

If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask me to. And if you want another kind of love I'll wear a mask for you.

At a certain point, if you still have your marbles and are not faced with serious financial challenges, you have a chance to put your house in order. It's a cliche, but it's underestimated as an analgesic on all levels. Putting your house in order, if you can do it, is one of the most comforting activities, and the benefits of it are incalculable.

As a young man, Yeats spoke to me in a way I could understand. Shakespeare I couldn't understand, but Yeats I could. It was his subject matter and also I really admired the way he put his personal life on the line.

I have a deep tribal sense. I grew up in a synagogue that my ancestors built. I sat in the third row. My family was decent. They were good people; they were handshake people. So I never had a sense of rebellion.

We are not mad. We are human.We want to love, and someone must forgive us for the paths we take to love, for the paths are many and dark, and we are ardent and cruel in our journey.

Journalists, especially English journalists, were very cruel to me. They said I only knew three chords when I knew five!

Let judges secretly despair of justice: their verdicts will be more acute. Let generals secretly despair of triumph; killing will be defamed. Let priests secretly despair of faith: their compassion will be true.

Out of the thousands who are known or who want to be known as poets, maybe one or two are genuine and the rest are fakes, hanging around the sacred precincts, trying to look like the real thing.

When you call me close to tell me your body is not beautiful I want to summon the eyes and hidden mouths of stone and light and water to testify against you.

Some people care about their work lasting forever - I have little interest in it.