Leonard Cohen Quotes

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

I greet you from the other side of sorrow and despair, with a love so vast and shattered it will reach you everywhere.

Never make a decision when you need to pee.

To keep our hearts open is probably the most urgent responsibility you have as you get older.

Act the way you'd like to be and soon you'll be the way you act.

May you be surrounded by friends and family, and if this is not your lot, may the blessings find you in your solitude.

We are so lightly here. It is in love that we are made. In love we disappear.

We are not mad. We are human.We want to love, and someone must forgive us for the paths we take to love, for the paths are many and dark, and we are ardent and cruel in our journey.

How can I begin anything new with all of yesterday in me?

I wish I could say everything in one word. I hate all the things that can happen between the beginning of a sentence and the end.

Love is the only engine of survival

If you don't become the ocean, you'll be seasick every day.

We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky.

It's the notion that there is no perfection - that there is a broken world and we live with broken hearts and broken lives but still there is no alibi for anything. On the contrary, you have to stand up and say hallelujah under those circumstances.

In the broken places, the light shines through.

It doesn't matter what you do because it's going to happen anyway.

Reality is one of the possibilities I cannot afford to ignore

I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin.

You who wish to conquer pain, you must learn what makes one kind.

You have to keep cracking yourself open or you become a parody of yourself.

I’ve seen the nations rise and fall. I’ve heard their stories, heard them all, but love’s the only engine of survival.

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 .

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

I see people allowing their lives to diminish, to become shallow, so they can't enjoy the deep wells of experience. Maybe it's always been this way, when the heart tends to shut down. If only the heart shut down and there were no repercussions, it would be O.K., but when the heart shuts down, the whole system goes into a kind of despair that is intolerable.

You lose your grip, and then you slip into the Masterpiece.