Leonard Cohen

A teacher I once had told me that the older you get, the lonelier you become and the deeper the love you need. Loneliness creates an appetite for deeper love, and the entire predicament deepens. And as a result of suffering, your capacity to love deeply increases.

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 __ou are a fine looking old man_ I said to myself in the mirror __nd what is more you have the correct attitude You don__ 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

If only my genitals didn't floatWhen I relaxed in the bathAnd we both looked down and we both agreedIt's stupid to be a man

Ah, grief makes us precise!

This is the most challenging activity that humans get into, which is love. You know, where we have the sense that we can__ live without love. That life has very little meaning without love. So we__e invited into this arena which is a very dangerous arena, where the possibilities of humiliation and failure are ample. So there__ no fixed lesson that one can learn, because the heart is always opening and closing, it__ always softening and hardening. We__e always experiencing joy or sadness. But there are lots of people who__e closed down. And there are times in one__ life when one has to close down just to regroup.

Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in.

And I'll dance with you in Vienna,I'll be wearing a river's disguise.The hyacinth wild on my shouldermy mouth on the dew of your thighs.And I'll bury my soul in a scrapbook,with the photographs there and the moss.And I'll yield to the flood of your beauty,my cheap violin and my cross.

Reality is one of the possibilities I cannot afford to ignore

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

It was a dance of masks and every mask was perfect because every mask was a real face and every face was areal mask so there was no mask and there was no face for there was but one dance in which there was butone mask but one true face which was the same and which was a thing without a name which changed andchanged into itself over and over.

Friend, when you speak this carefully I know it is because you don't know what to say.

DEAR DI­ARYYou are greater than the BibleAnd the Con­fer­ence of the BirdsAnd the Up­an­ishadsAll put to­geth­erYou are more se­vereThan the Scrip­turesAnd Ham­mura­bi__ CodeMore dan­ger­ous than Luther__ pa­perNailed to the Cathe­dral doorYou are sweet­erThan the Song of SongsMight­ier by farThan the Epic of Gil­gameshAnd braverThan the Sagas of Ice­landI bow my head in grat­itudeTo the ones who give their livesTo keep the se­cretThe dai­ly se­cretUn­der lock and keyDear Di­aryI mean no dis­re­spectBut you are more sub­limeThan any Sa­cred TextSome­times just a listOf my eventsIs holi­er than the Bill of RightsAnd more in­tense

I've forgotten most of what I've read and, frankly, it never seemed very important to me or to the world.

My reputation as a ladies' man was a joke. It caused me to laugh bitterly through the 10,000 nights I spent alone.

I never really liked poetry readings; I liked to read poetry by myself, but I liked singing, chanting my lyrics to this jazz group.

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.

Success is survival.

Let judges secretly despair of justice: their verdicts will be more acute. Let generals secretly despair of triumph killing will be defamed. Let priests secretly despair of faith: their compassion will be true.