Best 331 quotes of Leonard Cohen on MyQuotes

A community is an alibi for the failure of individual love.

Adam [Cohen] is a great singer-songwriter in his own right.

After a while, if you are sufficiently bored or unemployed, you may want to read it from cover to cover.

A heavy burden lifted from my soul, I heard that love was out of my control.

a kite is a victim you are sure of. you love it because it pulls.

All men will be sailors then Until the sea shall free them

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

Although only one man may be receiving the favors of a woman, all men in her presence are warmed.

Although only one man may be receiving the favors of a woman, all men in her presence are warmed. That's the great Generosity of women and the great generosity of the Creator who worked it out is that there are no unilateral agreements on sexuality.

And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook, with the photographs there and the moths.

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 sometimes when the night is slow The wretched and the meek We gather up our hearts and go A Thousand Kisses Deep.

And this is our time-keeper, with a passion for percussion

And what can I tell you, my brother, my killer, what can I possibly say? I guess that I miss you, I guess I forgive you, I'm glad you stood in my way

Any of the decisions that I made, if one could actually locate a shape or form, were all within a wall, the landscape of music.

Anyone who's been a heavy drinker and heavy smoker and has the good future to survive that and give it up knows what a very different kind of daily existence one has. I was smoking a couple of packs of cigarettes a day. And I was drinking heavily on tours.

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.

A poem has a certain - a different time. For instance, a poem is a very private experience, and it doesn't have a driving tempo. In other words, you know, you can go back and forward; you can comeback; you can linger. You know, it's a completely different time reference.

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.

As I grew older, I understood that instructions came with this voice. What were these instructions? The instructions were never to lament casually. And if one is to express the great inevitable defeat that awaits us all, it must be done within the strict confines of dignity and beauty.

A sip of wine, a cigarette, And then it’s time to go. I tidied up the kitchenette; I tuned the old banjo. I’m wanted at the traffic-jam. They’re saving me a seat.

A song, you know, you've got a tempo. You know,you've got something that is moving swiftly. You can't stop it, you know? Andit's designed to move swiftly from, you know, mouth to mouth, heart to heart,where a poem really speaks to something that has no time and that is - it's acompletely different perception.

As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder.

As soon as anybody does one of my songs, I rejoice. This particular case of all these great singers doing my work - the implications are very rich and the temptation to think of the outcome of these masses of the mainstream injecting my work into the marketplace, it's a very sweet speculation.

As the mist leaves no scar On the dark green hill So my body leaves no scar On you and never will

At the very center of our culture is a crucified man, a tortured man hanging on a cross of wood. You have an image of violence at the very center of our spiritual investigation.

Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you’re tired. You look like you could go on forever. Now come into my arms. You are the image of my beauty .

A woman watches her body uneasily, as though it were an unreliable ally in the battle for love.

...a young nurse is standing close behind me wondering whether she is being drawn by my power or her charity.

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.

But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags that time cannot decay, I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A.

But remember when I moved in you And the holy dove was moving too And every breath we drew was Hallelujah.

Certainly within any decadent period, you would probably find the purest expressions of conviction, and I do not see that in many of the people I know.

Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique.

Coroner's inquest: death by drowning. And he hasn't been to the sea-shore in ten years.

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove Dance me to the end of love

Dear Hitler Take away the torches I'm not guilty I had to have this

Deprivation is the mother of poetry.

Does anybody have a cigarette? I'm looking forward to that first smoke. I've been looking forward to [it] for about 30 years.

Do not be a magician - be magic!

Do not believe the truth. The truth is tiny compared to what you have to do.

Don't dwell on what has passed away or what is yet to be.

[Europe has] this tradition of self revelation in popular music. We have it here - it's called Country Western Music... I think that's where the deeper and more complex subjects are treated.

Even without the mushroom cloud still I would have hated Listen I would have done the same things even if there were no death I will not be held like a drunkard under the cold tap of facts I refuse the universal alibi

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking. Everybody knows the captain lied. Everybody got this broken feeling, like their father or their dog just died. Everybody talking to their pockets. Everybody wants a box of chocolates and a long-stem rose. Everybody knows.

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded, Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed, Everybody knows that the war is over, Everybody knows the good guys lost.

Every heart to Love will come, but like a refugee

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

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

Fare thee well my nightingale, I lived but to be near you. Thow you are singing somewhere still I can no longer hear you.