Leonard Cohen quotes

Leonard Cohen was a Canadian singer-songwriter, poet, and novelist known for his deeply emotional lyrics and distinctive voice. His work explored themes of love, spirituality, and longing, touching audiences worldwide. He left a lasting legacy as an influential figure in both music and literature. Here are 228 of his quotes:

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

Leonard Cohen

Never make a decision when you need to pee.

Leonard Cohen

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

Leonard Cohen

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

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

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

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

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

Leonard Cohen

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

Leonard Cohen

I finally broke into the prison I found my place in the chain Even damnation is poisoned with rainbows.

Leonard Cohen

It's you my love, you who are the stranger.

Leonard Cohen

It's true that all the men you knew were dealers who said they were through with dealing Every time you gave them shelter. I know that kind of man It's hard to hold the hand of anyone who is reaching for the sky just to surrender.

Leonard Cohen

Every heart to Love will come, but like a refugee.

Leonard Cohen

Rust rust rust in the engines of love and time.

Leonard Cohen

Like any dealer he was watching for the card that is so high and wild he'll never need to deal another. He was just some Joseph looking for a manger.

Leonard Cohen

You can say that I've grown bitter but of this you can be sure. The rich have get their channels in the bedrooms of the poor. And there's a mighty Judgement coming but I may be wrong.

Leonard Cohen

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.

Leonard Cohen

I've seen the future and it's murder.

Leonard Cohen

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

Leonard Cohen

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

Leonard Cohen

Deprivation is the mother of poetry.

Leonard Cohen

She was made of flesh and eyelashes.

Leonard Cohen