Quotes from Leonard Cohen

Sail on, sail on, o' might Ship of State. To the shores of need, past the reefs of greed, through the squalls of hate. Sail on, sail on, sail on.

Growing old becomes clear to you at a certain point. I think it's after the age of 70 you realize - you begin to actually be convinced - you're growing older.

Women stand for the objective world for a man. They stand for the thing that you're not and that's what you always reach for in a song.

It goes like thisThe fourth, the fifthThe minor fall, the major liftThe baffled king composing Hallelujah.

And you want to travel with herAnd you want to travel blindAnd you know that she will trust youFor you've touched her perfect body with your mind.

In dreams the truth is learned that all good works are done in the absence of a caress.

Music is the emotional life of most people.

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.

And most people have a woman in their heart, most men have a woman in their heart and most women have a man in their heart.

To every people the land is given on condition. Perceived or not, there is a Covenant, beyond the constitution, beyond sovereign guarantee, beyond the nation's sweetest dreams of itself.

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.

I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others it's for others to use.

And you treated my woman to a flake of your life/ And when she came back she was nobody's wife.

Any startling piece of work has a subversive element in it, a delicious element often. Subversion is only disagreeable when it manifests in political or social activity. In what we call art, it's one of the most desirable characteristics of a piece of work.

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

I always considered myself a minor writer. My province is small, and I try to explore it very, very thoroughly.

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

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

Seven to eleven is a huge chunk of life, full of dulling and forgetting. It is fabled that we slowly lose the gift of speech with animals, that birds no longer visit our windowsills to converse. As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armor themselves against wonder.

Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river You can hear the boats go by You can spend the night beside her And you know that she's half crazy But that's why you want to be there

The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold and it's overturned the order of the soul...

The term clinical depression finds its way into too many conversations these days. One has a sense that a catastrophe has occurred in the psychic landscape.

We used to play music for fun. Much more than now. Now nobody picks up a guitar unless they're paid for it.

What is most original in a man's nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. If Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn't have been content to enjoy the atmosphere.