110+ Leonard Cohen Quotes On Marriage, Death And Friendship

Leonard Cohen was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist. He was one of the most influential and successful musicians of the 20th century. His work explored religion, politics, isolation, depression, sexuality, loss, and romantic relationships. Following is our collection on famous quotes by Leonard Cohen on love, marriage, death.

Top 10 Leonard Cohen Quotes

1. There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.
2. 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.
3. May you be surrounded by friends and family, and if this is not your lot, may the blessings find you in your solitude.
4. We are so small between the stars, so large against the sky.
5. You live your life as if it's real.......a thousand kisses deep
6. Like a bird on a wire, like a drunk in a midnight choir, I have tried in my way to be free!!
7. When we are touched by a song, it is because the artist cannot hide himself.
8. The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world.
9. a kite is a victim you are sure of. you love it because it pulls.
10. 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

Leonard Cohen Image Quotes

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

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

Leonard Cohen Short Quotes

• I cannot understand why my arm is not a lilac tree.
• The cutting of the gem has to be finished before you can see whether it shines.
• Follow me, the wise man said, but he walked behind.
• You lose your grip, and then you slip into the Masterpiece.
• When you stop thinking about yourself all the time, a certain sense of repose overtakes you.
• My two great heroes are W. B. Yeats and Federico Garcia Lorca.
• Do not be a magician - be magic!
• A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.
• I told the truth, I didn't come to fool you
• My page was too white My ink was too thin The day wouldn't write What the night pencilled in.

Leonard Cohen Quotes About Love

Fare thee well my nightingale, I lived but to be near you. Thow you are singing somewhere still I can no longer hear you. — Leonard Cohen

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

I don't think there's any difference between a crush and profound love. I think the experience is that you dissolve your sentries and your battalions for a moment and you really do see that there is this unfixed free-flowing energy of emotion and thought between people, that it really is there. — Leonard Cohen

I loved you for a long, long time I know this love is real It don't matter how it all went wrong That don't change the way I feel And I can't believe that time's Gonna heal this wound I'm speaking of There ain't no cure for love — Leonard Cohen

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

Maybe there's a God above, As for me, all I've ever seemed to learn from love Is how to shoot at someone who outdrew you. Yeah but it's not a complaint that you hear tonight, It's not the laughter of someone who claims to have seen the light No it's a cold and it's a very lonely Hallelujah. — Leonard Cohen

I am not the one who loves - It's love that chooses me. When hatred with his package comes, you forbid delivery... — Leonard Cohen

I loved you when you opened like a lily to the heat; you see I’m just another snowman standing in the rain and sleet who loved you with his frozen love, his second hand physique, with all he is and all he was a thousand kisses deep. — Leonard Cohen

A heavy burden lifted from my soul, I heard that love was out of my control. — Leonard Cohen

The candles burned The moon went down The polished hill The milky town Transparent, weightless, luminous Uncovering the two of us On that fundamental ground Where love's unwilled, unleashed, unbound And half the perfect world is found. — Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen Quotes About Death

The big change is the proximity to death. — Leonard Cohen

Even without the mushroom cloud still I would have hated Listen I would have done the same things even if there were no death I will not be held like a drunkard under the cold tap of facts I refuse the universal alibi — Leonard Cohen

You've got a deadline. Well, I do, too: death. — Leonard Cohen

Coroner's inquest: death by drowning. And he hasn't been to the sea-shore in ten years. — Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen Quotes About Life

It's the notion that there is no perfection - that there is a broken world and we live with broken hearts and broken lives but still there is no alibi for anything. On the contrary, you have to stand up and say hallelujah under those circumstances. — Leonard Cohen

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

If you want a lover I'll do anything you ask. If you want a different kind of love I'll wear a mask. If you want to strike me down in anger here I stand. If you want a partner in life take my hand. I'm your man. — Leonard Cohen

Music is the emotional life of the most people. — Leonard Cohen

If I knew where the good songs came from, I’d go there more often. It’s a mysterious condition. It’s much like the life of a Catholic nun. You’re married to a mystery. — Leonard Cohen

I smile when I'm angry , I cheat and I lie. I do what I have to do to get by. But I know what is wrong and I know what is right , and I'd die for the truth in my secret life . — Leonard Cohen

The ages of seven to eleven is a huge chunk of life, full of dulling and forgetting. It is fabled that we slowly lose the gift of speech with animals, that birds no longer visit our windowsills to converse. As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder. — Leonard Cohen

I'm afraid to live any place but in expectation. I'm no life-risk. — Leonard Cohen

This particular school of Zen has always considered itself the Marines of the spiritual world, so it has a kind of bias against conceptual thinking in favor of a very rigorous physical life. — Leonard Cohen

Love is not a victory march — Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen Quotes About War

Israel, and you who call yourself Israel, the Church that calls itself Israel, and the revolt that calls itself Israel, and every nation chosen to be a nation - none of these lands is yours, all of you are thieves of holiness, all of you at war with Mercy. — Leonard Cohen

The wars they will be fought again The holy dove be caught again bought and sold and bought again; the dove is never free. — Leonard Cohen

Everybody knows that the dice are loaded, Everybody rolls with their fingers crossed, Everybody knows that the war is over, Everybody knows the good guys lost. — Leonard Cohen

There is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn't. — Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen Quotes About Soulful

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

And I'll dance with you in Vienna, I'll be wearing a river's disguise. The hyacinth wild on my shoulder my 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. — Leonard Cohen

I said I was ready to die recently, and I think I was exaggerating.That declaration of readiness, no matter what the outcome, that's a part of everyone's soul. — Leonard Cohen

Undertow" "I set out one night When the tide was low There were signs in the sky But I did not know I'd be caught in the grip Of the undertow Ditched on a beach Where the sea hates to go With a child in my arms And a chill in my soul And my heart the shape Of a begging bowl — Leonard Cohen

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

Yes, you who must leave everything that you cannot control, It begins with your family, and soon it comes round to your soul. Well I've been where you're hanging, I think I can see how you're pinned: When you're not feeling holy your loneliness says that you've sinned. — Leonard Cohen

Raise a million filters and the rain will not be clean, until the longing for it be refined in deep confession. And still we hear, If only this nation had a soul, or, Let us change the way we trade, or, Let us be proud of our region. — Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen Quotes About World

What is the appropriate behavior for a man or a woman in the midst of this world, where each person is clinging to his piece of debris? What's the proper salutation between people as they pass each other in this flood? — Leonard Cohen

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

Love is a fire/It burns everyone/It disfigures everyone/It is the world's excuse for being ugly. — Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen Quotes About People

I think there's an appetite for seriousness. Seriousness is voluptuous, and very few people have allowed themselves the luxury of it. — Leonard Cohen

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. — Leonard Cohen

Now, I don't want to give you the impression that I'm a great musicologist, but I'm a lot better than what I was described as for a long, long time; you know, people said I only knew three chords when I knew five. — Leonard Cohen

The obstacles are great and the suffering is great and people have got to make a living. — Leonard Cohen

Just to get serious about this thing, you know. One has to be compassionate. It's true that people are up against things, economically and emotionally. — Leonard Cohen

Part of the shabbiness of our culture, if indeed it is shabby, is that it doesn't seem to prepare people. With all the songs about love and all the movies and all the books, there doesn't seem to be any way that we can prepare the human heart for this experience. — Leonard Cohen

Today [people] are ready to take emergency cures, whatever they are, if it's violence, if it's a fascination with serial killing or whatever - the discomfort is so intense. Maybe it's always been like that, certainly it is now. — Leonard Cohen

Certainly within any decadent period, you would probably find the purest expressions of conviction, and I do not see that in many of the people I know. — Leonard Cohen

Other people singing my songs is something that I've never been casual about. I've always been very touched by it and I always go into immediate critical suspension. — Leonard Cohen

And most people have a woman in their heart, most men have a woman in their heart and most women have a man in their heart. — Leonard Cohen

Leonard Cohen Famous Quotes And Sayings

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

Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you’re tired. You look like you could go on forever. Now come into my arms. You are the image of my beauty . — Leonard Cohen

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'. — Leonard Cohen

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. — Leonard Cohen

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

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

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

Hallelujah" "Your faith was strong but you needed proof. You saw her bathing on the roof. Her beauty and the moonlight overthrew you. She tied you to a kitchen chair, she broke your throne, and she cut your hair. And from your lips she drew the Hallelujah. — Leonard Cohen

What is most original in a man's nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. If Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn't have been content to enjoy the atmosphere. — Leonard Cohen

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. — Leonard Cohen

Everybody knows that the boat is leaking. Everybody knows the captain lied. Everybody got this broken feeling, like their father or their dog just died. Everybody talking to their pockets. Everybody wants a box of chocolates and a long-stem rose. Everybody knows. — Leonard Cohen

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

Now I've heard there was a secret chord That David played, and it pleased the Lord But you don't really care for music, do you? It goes like this the fourth, the fifth The minor fall, the major lift The baffled king composing Hallelujah — Leonard Cohen

You say I took the name in vain I don't even know the name But if I did, well really, what's it to you? There's a blaze of light in every word It doesn't matter which you heard The holy or the broken Hallelujah — Leonard Cohen

It's been a long time since I've stood on a stage in London. Was about 14 or 15 years ago, I was 60 years old, just a kid with a crazy dream. Since then I've taken a lot of Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Ritalin, Focalin. I've also studied deeply in the philosophies and the religions, but cheerfulness kept breaking through. — Leonard Cohen

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

She was made of flesh and eyelashes. — Leonard Cohen

Seriousness is not Calvinistic, it's not a renunciation, it's the very opposite of that. — Leonard Cohen

Garages, barns and attics are always older than the buildings to which they are attached. — Leonard Cohen

But I'm stubborn as those garbage bags that time cannot decay, I'm junk but I'm still holding up this little wild bouquet: Democracy is coming to the U.S.A. — Leonard Cohen

I can't run no more with that lawless crowd while the killers in high places say their prayers out loud. But they've summoned, they've summoned up a thundercloud and they're going to hear from me. Ring the bells that still can ring Forget your perfect offering There is a crack in everything That's how the light gets in. — Leonard Cohen

A man never got a woman back... not by begging on his knees. — Leonard Cohen

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. — Leonard Cohen

There are no letters in the mailbox And there are no grapes upon the vine And there are no chocolates in your boxes anymore And there are no diamonds in the mine — Leonard Cohen

You have to keep cracking yourself open or you become a parody of yourself. — Leonard Cohen

Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove Dance me to the end of love. — Leonard Cohen

I turned my back on the devil, turned my back on the angel too. — Leonard Cohen

In Montreal spring is like an autopsy. Everyone wants to see the inside of the frozen mammoth. Girls rip off their sleeves and the flesh is sweet and white, like wood under green bark. From the streets a sexual manifesto rises like an inflating tire, “the winter has not killed us again! — Leonard Cohen

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. — Leonard Cohen

As our eyes grow accustomed to sight they armour themselves against wonder. — Leonard Cohen

Only in Canada could somebody with a voice like mine win 'Vocalist of the Year'. — Leonard Cohen

The moon is swimming naked and the summer night is fragrant with a mighty expectation of relief. — Leonard Cohen

The duty of lovers is to tarnish the Golden Rule — Leonard Cohen

even damnation is poisoned with rainbows. — Leonard Cohen

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. — Leonard Cohen

Ring the bells that still can ring. — Leonard Cohen

Some say that no one ever leaves Montreal, for that city, like Canada itself, is designed to preserve the past, a past that happened somewhere else. — Leonard Cohen

A woman watches her body uneasily, as though it were an unreliable ally in the battle for love. — Leonard Cohen

In dreams the truth is learned that all good works are done in the absence of a caress. — Leonard Cohen

Everybody knows the dice are loaded. — Leonard Cohen

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

... 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 — Leonard Cohen

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. — Leonard Cohen

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

A poem has a certain - a different time. For instance, a poem is a very private experience, and it doesn't have a driving tempo. In other words, you know, you can go back and forward; you can comeback; you can linger. You know, it's a completely different time reference. — Leonard Cohen

Well it's true, ever since I stopped eating meat I feel a lot better among animals, I feel I can be much more honest when I pat a dog. — Leonard Cohen

The Maestro says it's Mozart but it sounds like bubble gum when you're waiting for the miracle to come. — Leonard Cohen

As the mist leaves no scar On the dark green hill So my body leaves no scar On you and never will — Leonard Cohen

History is a needle for putting men asleep anointed with the poison Of all they want to keep. — Leonard Cohen

No penance serves to renew them, no massive transfusions of trust. Why not even revenge can undo them, so twisted these vows and so crushed. — Leonard Cohen

First we take Manhattan, then we take Berlin — Leonard Cohen

I don't trust my inner feelings, inner feelings come and go. — Leonard Cohen

I loved you in the morning, our kisses deep and warm, your hair upon the pillow like a sleepy, golden storm, yes many loved before us, I know we are not new, in city and in forest they smiled like me and you, but now it's come to distances and both of us must try, your eyes are soft with sorrow, Hey, that's no way to say goodbye. — Leonard Cohen

Deprivation is the mother of poetry. — Leonard Cohen

[Prozac] didn't seem to have any effect whatsoever on my melancholy, my dark vision, and everything else that I'd taken it for. — Leonard Cohen

I fought against the bottle, but I had to do it drunk. Took my diamond to the pawn shop, but that don't make it junk. — Leonard Cohen

To the men and women who own men and women those of us meant to be lovers we will not pardon you for wasting our bodies and time — Leonard Cohen

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

...a young nurse is standing close behind me wondering whether she is being drawn by my power or her charity. — Leonard Cohen

There's no concession to the fact that Dylan might be a more sophisticated singer than Whitney Houston, that he's probably the most sophisticated singer we've had in a generation. Nobody is identifying our popular singers like a Matisse or Picasso. Dylan's a Picasso - that exuberance, range, and assimilation of the whole history of music. — Leonard Cohen

Be With Me In The Phases Of My Work Because My Brain Feels Like It Has Been Whipped And I Yearn To Make A Small Perfect Thing Which Will Live In Your Morning Like Curious Static Through A President's Elegy Or A Nude Hunchback Acquiring A Tan On The Crowded Oily Beach. — Leonard Cohen

Everybody knows that you've been faithful, give or take a night or two. — Leonard Cohen

Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. — Leonard Cohen

You were Marlon Brando, I was Steve McQueen, you were K.Y. Jelly, I was Vaseline. — Leonard Cohen

How bitter were the Prozac pills of the last few hundred mornings — Leonard Cohen

So the great affair is over but whoever would have guessed, It would leave us all so vacant and so deeply unimpressed, It's like our visit to the moon or to that other star, I guess you go for nothing if you really want to go that far. — Leonard Cohen

[Patrick Leonard] is such a magnificent composer. I don't think there is anybody working today with those kind of skills that could translate one of my tunes into that really beautiful chamber music. — Leonard Cohen

Life Lessons by Leonard Cohen

1. Life is full of both joy and sorrow, and it is important to accept both of these emotions in order to live a meaningful life. Leonard Cohen's music often reflects this idea, encouraging listeners to embrace the highs and lows of life.
2. It is essential to take risks and follow your dreams, even if it means facing uncertainty and discomfort. Leonard Cohen's career was marked by his willingness to take risks and remain true to his creative vision.
3. It is important to be open to change and to be willing to adapt to new circumstances. Leonard Cohen's music evolved significantly over the course of his career, showing his willingness to embrace new ideas and sounds.