Leonard Cohen Quotes

Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as a secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.
Leonard Cohen
I want history to jump on Canada's spine with sharp skates.
Leonard Cohen
It looks like freedom but it feels like death, it's something in between I guess. It's closing time.
Leonard Cohen
There is a crack in everything
Leonard Cohen
Remember when I moved in you and the holy dove was moving too, and every breath we drew was, "Hallelujah.
Leonard Cohen
Everybody knows that the dice are loadedEverybody rolls with their fingers crossedEverybody knows the war is overEverybody knows the good guys lostEverybody knows the fight was fixedThe poor stay poor, the rich get richThat's how it goesEverybody knows
Leonard Cohen
Dear friend, I have searched all nightthrough each burnt paper,but I fear I will never findthe formula to let you die
Leonard Cohen
The RemoteI often think about youwhen I’m lying alone inmy room with my mouthopen and the remotelost somewhere in the bed.
Leonard Cohen
I know she is coming I know she will look And that is the longing And this is the book.
Leonard Cohen
If I spelled out the Principles of FaithI would be barking on the moon.
Leonard Cohen
Show me slowly what I onlyknow the limits ofDance me to the end of love
Leonard Cohen
Sexuality is general, and although only one man may be receiving the favors of a woman, all men in her presence are warm. That's the great generosity of women and the great generosity of the creator who worked it out that way, that there are no unilateral agreements of sexuality.
Leonard Cohen
You should gofrom place to placerecovering the poemsthat have been written for youto which you can affix your signature.Don't discuss these matterswith anyone.Retrieve. Retrieve.When the basket is fullsomeone will appearto whom you can present it.
Leonard Cohen
It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple
Leonard Cohen
My animal howlsMy angel's upsetBut I'm not allowedA trace of regret
Leonard Cohen
Blessed is the covenant of love, the covenant of mercy, useless light behind the terror, deathless song in the house of night.
Leonard Cohen
Blessed are you who circled desire with a blade, and the garden with fiery swords, and heaven and earth with a word.
Leonard Cohen
Though I love your company, your instructions are wasted her. I will always choose the woman who caries me off, I will always sit with the family of loneliness.
Leonard Cohen
There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen
How quickly pettiness returns, and that most ignoble form of real estate, the possessive occupation and tyranny over two square inches of human flesh, the wife's cunt.
Leonard Cohen
And may my bronze name / touch always her thousand fingers / grow brighter with her weeping / until I am fixed like a galaxy / and memorized / in her secret and fragile skies.
Leonard Cohen
A teacher I once had told me that the older you get, the lonelier you become and the deeper the love you need. Loneliness creates an appetite for deeper love, and the entire predicament deepens. And as a result of suffering, your capacity to love deeply increases.
Leonard Cohen
Except for a couple of hours in the morning which I passed in the company of a sage I stayed in bed without food only a few mouthfuls of water “you are a fine looking old man” I said to myself in the mirror “and what is more you have the correct attitude You don’t care if it ends or if it goes on And as for the women and the music there will be plenty of that in Paradise” Then I went to the Mosque of Memory to express my gratitude
Leonard Cohen
If only my genitals didn't floatWhen I relaxed in the bathAnd we both looked down and we both agreedIt's stupid to be a man
Leonard Cohen
Ah, grief makes us precise!
Leonard Cohen
This is the most challenging activity that humans get into, which is love. You know, where we have the sense that we can’t live without love. That life has very little meaning without love. So we’re invited into this arena which is a very dangerous arena, where the possibilities of humiliation and failure are ample. So there’s no fixed lesson that one can learn, because the heart is always opening and closing, it’s always softening and hardening. 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.
Leonard Cohen
Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen
Reality is one of the possibilities I cannot afford to ignore
Leonard Cohen
There is a crack, a crack, in everything. That's how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen
Friend, when you speak this carefully I know it is because you don't know what to say.
Leonard Cohen
DEAR DI­ARYYou are greater than the BibleAnd the Con­fer­ence of the BirdsAnd the Up­an­ishadsAll put to­geth­erYou are more se­vereThan the Scrip­turesAnd Ham­mura­bi’s CodeMore dan­ger­ous than Luther’s pa­perNailed to the Cathe­dral doorYou are sweet­erThan the Song of SongsMight­ier by farThan the Epic of Gil­gameshAnd braverThan the Sagas of Ice­landI bow my head in grat­itudeTo the ones who give their livesTo keep the se­cretThe dai­ly se­cretUn­der lock and keyDear Di­aryI mean no dis­re­spectBut you are more sub­limeThan any Sa­cred TextSome­times just a listOf my eventsIs holi­er than the Bill of RightsAnd more in­tense
Leonard Cohen
I've forgotten most of what I've read and, frankly, it never seemed very important to me or to the world.
Leonard Cohen
Be With Me In The Phases Of My Work Because My Brain Feels Like It Has Been Whipped And I Yearn To Make A Small Perfect Thing Which Will Live In Your Morning Like Curious Static Through A President's Elegy Or A Nude Hunchback Acquiring A Tan On The Crowded Oily Beach.
Leonard Cohen
Your faith was strong, but you needed proof...
Leonard Cohen
I walk through the old yellow sunlightto get to my kitchen tablethe poem about melying there with the booksin which I am listedamong the dead and future Dylans
Leonard Cohen
At first first nothing will happen to usand later on it will happen to us again.
Leonard Cohen
I heard of a manwho says words so beautifullythat if he only speaks their namewomen give themselves to him.If I am dumb beside your bodywhile silence blossoms like tumors on our lipsit is because I hear a man climb stairsand clear his throat outside our door.
Leonard Cohen
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.
Leonard Cohen
Who could have foretoldthe heart grows oldfrom touching others
Leonard Cohen
Deprivation is the mother of poetry.
Leonard Cohen
first of all nothing will happen and a little laternothing will happen again
Leonard Cohen
There is a crack in everything.That's how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen
I loved you when you opened like a lily to the heat; you see I’m just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet who loved you with his frozen love, his second hand physique, with all he is and all he was a thousand kisses deep.
Leonard Cohen
It was a dance of masks and every mask was perfect because every mask was a real face and every face was areal mask so there was no mask and there was no face for there was but one dance in which there was butone mask but one true face which was the same and which was a thing without a name which changed andchanged into itself over and over.
Leonard Cohen
Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
Leonard Cohen
... i didn't fall in love of courseit's never up to youbut she was walking back and forthand i was passing through
Leonard Cohen
And I'll dance with you in Vienna,I'll be wearing a river's disguise.The hyacinth wild on my shouldermy 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.
Leonard Cohen