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Leonard Cohen Quotes about Writing

All Leonard Cohen Quotes Art Beach Chaos Children Culture Depression Feelings Giving Gratitude Greed Hate Heart Hills Inspiration Kissing Life Loneliness Love Lying Magic Mercy Moon Morning Music My Way Pain Passion Past Pleasure Poetry Rain Reality Responsibility Running Sexuality Silence Singing Sleep Songwriting Soul Strategy Suffering Today Vision Waiting War Winning Writing quotes

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.

Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.

Writing, Poetry, Ashes

"My favourite word in songwriting history is 'that'" by Laura Barton, www.theguardian.com. May 31, 2007.

My page was too white My ink was too thin The day wouldn't write What the night pencilled in.

Writing, Night, White

The cutting of the gem has to be finished before you can see whether it shines.

Writing, Cutting, Shining

Leonard Cohen (2014). “Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen”, p.355, Omnibus Press

We're in a world where there's famine and hunger and people are dodging bullets and having their nails pulled out in dungeons so it's very hard for me to place any high value on the work that I do to write a song. Yeah, I work hard but compared to what?

Song, Hard Work, Writing

"Leonard Cohen: 'All I've got to put in a song is my own experience'" by Dorian Lynskey, www.theguardian.com. January 19, 2012.

I feel that, you know, the enormous luck I've had in being able to make a living, and to never have had to have written one word that I didn't want to write, to be able to have satisfied that dictum I set for myself, which was not to work for pay, but to be paid for my work - just to be able to satisfy those standards that I set for myself has been an enormous privilege.

Writing, Luck, Want

BBC Radio 1FM Interveiw, 1994.

I'd written a lot of songs with hummingbirds in them. None of them ever came to anything, but I did write a few lines last month. It went like this: 'Listen to the hummingbird whose wings you cannot see. Listen to the hummingbird, don't listen to me'.

Song, Writing, Wings

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.

Writing, People, Obscure

"Telling It on the Mountain : Although Leonard Cohen has retreated to a Zen center to write music and poetry, a tribute album being released this week could bring new fans". Interview with Robert Hilburn, articles.latimes.com. September 24, 1995.

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

Morning, Writing, Four

Song: Famous Blue Raincoat, 1971

I didn't want to write for pay. I wanted to be paid for what I write.

Writing, Want, Pay

"Biography / Personal Quotes". www.imdb.com.

I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others; it's for others to use.

Writing, Giving, Use

I'm writing all the time. And as the songs begin to coalesce, I'm not doing anything else but writing. I wish I were one of those people who wrote songs quickly. But I'm not. So it takes me a great deal of time to find out what the song is.

Song, Writing, People

Leonard Cohen (2014). “Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen”, p.346, Omnibus Press

I have to finish it in order to know whether it deserves to survive.

Writing, Order, Knows

The fact that my songs take a long time to write is no guarantee of their excellence.

Song, Writing, Long

"Leonard Cohen: giving Nobel to Bob Dylan like 'pinning medal on Everest'". www.theguardian.com. October 14, 2016.

I think that any songwriter - and I think that Bob Dylan knows this more than all of us - you don't write the songs anyhow.

Song, Writing, Thinking

It just takes a long time for me [to write a song]. I'm very slow. And it comes, kind of, by dribbles and drops.

Song, Writing, Long

I don't think you can write novels on the road. You need a certain stability.

Writing, Thinking, Needs

"'I have been satirised as suicidal and self-indulgent' - a classic Leonard Cohen interview from the vaults". Interview with Mike Jahn, www.theguardian.com. November 29, 2011.

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