"Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash."
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Quote collection
Leonard Cohen quotes (page 3 of 20)
399 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.
"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."
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"I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That's what sitting on your ass does to your face."
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"Your heart opens and of course you're completely panicked because you're used to guarding this organ with your life."
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"You lose your grip, and then you slip into the Masterpiece."
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"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."
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"My two great heroes are W. B. Yeats and Federico Garcia Lorca."
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"When you stop thinking about yourself all the time, a certain sense of repose overtakes you."
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"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."
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"Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh."
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"If you don't become the ocean, you'll be seasick every day."
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"Now suzanne takes you hand And she leads you to the river She is wearing rags and feathers From salvation army counters And the sun pours down like honey On our lady of the harbour And she shows you where to look Among the garbage and the flowers There are heroes in the seaweed There are children in the morning They are leaning out for love And they will lean that way forever While suzanne holds the mirror And you want to travel with her And you want to travel blind And you know that she will trust you For shes touched your perfect body with her mind."
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"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."
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"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."
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"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."
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"Do not be a magician - be magic!"
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"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."
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"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"
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"But remember when I moved in you And the holy dove was moving too And every breath we drew was Hallelujah."
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"I see people allowing their lives to diminish, to become shallow, so they can't enjoy the deep wells of experience. Maybe it's always been this way, when the heart tends to shut down. If only the heart shut down and there were no repercussions, it would be O.K., but when the heart shuts down, the whole system goes into a kind of despair that is intolerable."
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