Leonard Cohen Quotes

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

... 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

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

~ 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

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

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

~ Leonard Cohen

first of all nothing will happen and a little laternothing will happen again

~ Leonard Cohen

Deprivation is the mother of poetry.

~ 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

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

At first first nothing will happen to usand later on it will happen to us again.

~ 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

Your faith was strong, but you needed proof...

~ 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

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

There is a crack, 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

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

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

Ah, grief makes us precise!

~ 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

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

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

There is a crack in everything, that’s how the light gets in.

~ 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

My animal howlsMy angel's upsetBut I'm not allowedA trace of regret

~ Leonard Cohen

It is easy to display a wound, the proud scars of combat. It is hard to show a pimple

~ 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

Show me slowly what I onlyknow the limits ofDance me to the end of love

~ Leonard Cohen

If I spelled out the Principles of FaithI would be barking on the moon.

~ Leonard Cohen

I know she is coming I know she will look And that is the longing And this is the book.

~ 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

Dear friend, I have searched all nightthrough each burnt paper,but I fear I will never findthe formula to let you die

~ 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

It looks like freedom but it feels like death, it's something in between I guess. It's closing time.

~ Leonard Cohen

I want history to jump on Canada's spine with sharp skates.

~ Leonard Cohen

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