Leonard Cohen Quotes

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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 small between the stars, so large against the sky.

You live your life as if it's real.......a thousand kisses deep

Reality is one of the possibilities I cannot afford to ignore

Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free!!

When things get really bad, just raise your glass and stamp your feet and do a little jig. That's about all you can do.

When we are touched by a song, it is because the artist cannot hide himself.

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

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

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.

a kite is a victim you are sure of. you love it because it pulls.

Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove Dance me to the end of love

Never make a decision when you need to pee.

The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world.

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 cannot understand why my arm is not a lilac tree.

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

The blizzard of the world has crossed the threshold and it's overturned the order of the soul.

I always loved those little creatures [hummingbird], always feel blessed when they appear nearby. There's a magical quality to them. I finally put one in a song.

At the very center of our culture is a crucified man, a tortured man hanging on a cross of wood. You have an image of violence at the very center of our spiritual investigation.

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

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

In the broken places, the light shines through.

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

Follow me, the wise man said, but he walked behind.

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

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

Your heart opens and of course you're completely panicked because you're used to guarding this organ with your life.

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

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

My two great heroes are W. B. Yeats and Federico Garcia Lorca.

When you stop thinking about yourself all the time, a certain sense of repose overtakes you.

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

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.

We're always experiencing joy or sadness. But there are lots of people who've closed down. And there are times in one's life when one has to close down just to regroup.

Do not be a magician - be magic!

But remember when I moved in you And the holy dove was moving too And every breath we drew was Hallelujah.

A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love.

A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.

I've often said if I knew where the good songs came from, I'd go there more often.

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

I told the truth, I didn't come to fool you

My reputation as a ladies' man was a joke that caused me to laugh bitterly through the ten thousand nights I spent alone.

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