Quotes By Leonard Cohen

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

Well, for one thing, in the tradition of Zen that I've practiced, there is no prayerful worship and there is no affirmation of a deity.

Most of the time one is discouraged by the work, but now and again by some grace something stands out and invites you to work on it, to elaborate it or animate it in some way. It's a mysterious process.

I read with some amusement my reputation as a ladies' man. My friends are amused by that, too, because they know my life.

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

I had the title poet, and maybe I was one for a while. Also, the title singer was kindly accorded me, even though I could barely carry a tune.

I don't really understand that process called reincarnation but if there is such a thing I'd like to come back as my daughter's dog.

The older I get, the surer I am that I'm not running the show.

I think the term poet is a very exalted term and should be applied to a man at the end of his work. When he looks back over the body of his work and he's written poetry then let the verdict be that he's a poet.

I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That's what sitting on your ass does to your face.

Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.

Music is the emotional life of most people.

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.

Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered.

Success is survival.

To every people the land is given on condition. Perceived or not, there is a Covenant, beyond the constitution, beyond sovereign guarantee, beyond the nation's sweetest dreams of itself.

I speak of a clinical depression that is the background of your entire life, a background of anguish and anxiety, a sense that nothing goes well, that pleasure is unavailable and all your strategies collapse.