"Shouldering your loneliness like a gun that you will not learn to aim, you stumble into this movie house then you climb, you climb into the frame."
Read quote
3 likes
Quote collection
Leonard Cohen quotes (page 16 of 20)
399 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"I can work on a verse for a very long time before realising it's not any good and then, and only then, can I discard it."
Read quote
3 likes
"I've never thought of myself as a singer anyway. . . I've been free from those considerations because so many people over the years told me I don't have a voice. I kind of bought that. I never thought that much about it to begin with. I knew I didn't have one of the great voices. As my Damon Runyanesque lawyer used to say, "none of you guys can sing. If I want to hear singing, I'll go to the Metropolitan Opera.""
Read quote
3 likes
"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."
Read quote
3 likes
"I have to finish it in order to know whether it deserves to survive."
Read quote
3 likes
"This mental space is occupied and everything is mine."
Read quote
3 likes
"I heard of a man who says words so beautifully that if he only speaks their name women give themselves to him. If I am dumb beside your body while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips it is because I hear a man climb stairs and clear his throat outside our door."
Read quote
3 likes
"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."
Read quote
3 likes
"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."
Read quote
3 likes
"I don't even hate books anymore."
Read quote
3 likes
"I was 15 when I first became deeply touched by the rhythm and structure of words."
Read quote
3 likes
"After a while, if you are sufficiently bored or unemployed, you may want to read it from cover to cover."
Read quote
3 likes
"I always considered myself a minor writer. My province is small, and I try to explore it very, very thoroughly."
Read quote
3 likes
"I never really liked poetry readings; I liked to read poetry by myself, but I liked singing, chanting my lyrics to this jazz group."
Read quote
3 likes
"Suffering, violent suffering, seems to be something that corresponds with something that we experience."
Read quote
3 likes
"I'm not a very nostalgic person. I don't really look at the past and summon up regrets, or self-congratulations, it just is not a mechanism that operates very strongly in me. So I neither have regrets nor occasions for self-congratulations."
Read quote
3 likes
"We all are motivated by deep impulses and deep appetites to serve, even though we may not be able to locate that which we are hoping to serve. So this is just a part of my nature and I think everybody else's nature to offer oneself at the critical moment when the emergency becomes articulate. It's only then that we can locate that willingness to serve."
Read quote
3 likes
"What a beautiful testament to the creative spirit and its true motives, to creative contribution coming from a place of purpose rather than a hunger for profit."
Read quote
3 likes
"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."
Read quote
3 likes
"As a young man, Yeats spoke to me in a way I could understand. Shakespeare I couldn't understand, but Yeats I could. It was his subject matter and also I really admired the way he put his personal life on the line."
Read quote
3 likes