Leonard Cohen Quotes - Page 5

You say I took the name in vain I don't even know the name But if I did, well really, what's it to you? There's a blaze of light in every word It doesn't matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah

Some people are graced with a flow; some people are graced with something less than a flow. I'm one of those.

Israel, and you who call yourself Israel, the Church that calls itself Israel, and the revolt that calls itself Israel, and every nation chosen to be a nation - none of these lands is yours, all of you are thieves of holiness, all of you at war with Mercy.

Songs don’t dignify human activity. Human activity dignifies the song.

We are awakening from the dream of isolation, from the dream of loneliness, and it's a terrible shock.

Out of the thousands who are known or who want to be known as poets, maybe one or two are genuine and the rest are fakes, hanging around the sacred precincts, trying to look like the real thing.

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

I think what we like about music - and what we like about art in general....is that enterprise that stops our minds from spinning. Because we're always all over the place. A good song, a good lyric is a movie: it will just focus and calm and confer significance on this completely bewildering reality that all of us live in.

I'm planning a catastrophe.

Anything I tell you is an alibi for something else." Then let's be quiet together.

I dreamed about you baby. It was just the other night. Most of you was naked Ah, but some of you was light.

I am not the one who loves - It's love that chooses me. When hatred with his package comes, you forbid delivery...

A man never got a woman back... not by begging on his knees.

To the men and women who own men and women those of us meant to be lovers we will not pardon you for wasting our bodies and time

I guess you go for nothing, if you really want to go that far.

Now I've heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don't really care for music, do you? It goes like this the fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah

Why don't you try to do without him, why don't you try to live alone? Do you really need his hands for your passion? Do you really need his heart for your throne? Do you need his labor for your baby? Do you need his beast for the bone? Do you need to hold a leash to be a lady? I know that you can make it, you can make it on your own.

May everyone live, And may everyone die. Hello, my love, And my love, Goodbye.

I have tried in my way to be free.

People used to say my music was too difficult or too obscure, and I never set out to be difficult or obscure. I just set out to write what I felt as honestly as I could, and I am delighted when other people feel a part of themselves in the music.

She was made of flesh and eyelashes.

I can't run no more with that lawless crowd while the killers in high places say their prayers out loud. But they've summoned, they've summoned up a thundercloud and they're going to hear from me. Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in.

The candles burned The moon went down The polished hill The milky town Transparent, weightless, luminous Uncovering the two of us On that fundamental ground Where love's unwilled, unleashed, unbound And half the perfect world is found.

The Dream" "O I had such a wonderful dream, she said. I dreamed you made love to me. At last, he said to himself, the spirit has taken up some of the heavy work.

It's you my love, you who are the stranger.