Leonard Cohen Quotes - Page 7

I think that really what our training, what our culture, our religious institutions, our educational and cultural institutions should be about is preparing the heart for that journey outside of the cage of the ribs.

We've got to temper anything we say with that. On the other hand, you've got to be serious about what you do. And you've got to understand the price you pay for frivolity or just for greed - it's a very high price, especially if you're involved in this sacred material, which is about the human heart and human desire and human tragedy.

Here is your cross, Your nails and your hill; And here is your love, That lists where it will

Love is not a victory march

There's a deep tribal aspect to my own nature. So when I'm in contact with those deep resources, of course I feel a very special kind of nourishment.

My friends are gone and my hair is grey. I ache in places I used to play. And I’m crazy for love but I’m not coming on. I’m just paying my rent every day in the tower of song.

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

Comic books, movies, radio programmes centered their entertainment around the fact of torture. With the clearest of consciences, with a patriotic intensity, children dreamed, talked, acted orgies of physical abuse. Imaginations were released to wander on a reconnaissance mission from Cavalry to Dachau. European children starved and watched their parents scheme and die. Here we grew up with toy whips. Early warning against our future leaders, the war babies.

We do what only lovers can: make a gift out of necessity.

I know there is an eye that watches all of us. There is a judgment that weighs everything we do. And before this great force, which is greater than any government I stand in awe and I kneel in respect and it is to this great judgment that I dedicate this next song...

We are ugly but we have the music.

I would say the hummingbird really deserves the royalties on [some of my songs].

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

... i didn't fall in love of course it's never up to you but she was walking back and forth and i was passing through

Well I am the one who loves changing from nothing to one.

He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.

Maybe there's a god above but the only thing I learned from love was how to shoot at somebody who outdrew you.

It's not a cry you can hear at night. It's not somebody who has seen the light. It's a cold and it's a broken Hallelujah.

It's four in the morning, the end of december I'm writing you now just to see if you're better.

We used to play music for fun. Much more than now. Now nobody picks up a guitar unless they're paid for it.

Like any dealer he was watching for the card that is so high and wild he'll never need to deal another. He was just some Joseph looking for a manger.

The term clinical depression finds its way into too many conversations these days. One has a sense that a catastrophe has occurred in the psychic landscape.

I cannot understand why my arm is not a lilac tree.

The birds they sangat the break of day.Start again!!I heard them say

I swear by this song and by all that I have done wrong, I will make it all up to thee.