Quotes by 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.

There is a crack in everything.Thats how the light gets in.

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

Deprivation is the mother of poetry.

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.

Who could have foretoldthe heart grows oldfrom touching others

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.

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

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

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

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 Presidents Elegy Or A Nude Hunchback Acquiring A Tan On The Crowded Oily Beach.

Ive forgotten most of what Ive read and, frankly, it never seemed very important to me or to the world.

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

Friend, when you speak this carefully I know it is because you dont know what to say.

There is a crack, a crack, in everything. Thats how the light gets in.

Reality is one of the possibilities I cannot afford to ignore

Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything Thats how the light gets in.

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.

Ah, grief makes us precise!

If only my genitals didnt floatWhen I relaxed in the bathAnd we both looked down and we both agreedIts stupid to be a man