Leonard Cohen

“Sexuality is general, and although only one man may be receiving the favors of a woman, all men in her presence are warm. That's the great generosity of women and the great generosity of the creator who worked it out that way, that there are no unilateral agreements of sexuality.”

“I want to summon the eyes and hidden mouths of stone and light and water to testify against you.”

“Todas las disparidades del mundo, las diversas alas de la paradoja, las dos caras del problema, las preguntas de deshojar la margarita, la concienca con forma de tijera, todas las polaridades, las cosas y sus imágenes y las cosas que no proyectan sombras y, sencillamente, las explosiones cotidianas de una calle, esta cara y aquélla, una casa y un dolor de muelas, explosiones que sólo tienen, en su nombre, letras diferentes, mi aguja todo lo atraviesa, y yo mismo, mis ávidas fantasías, todo lo que ha existido y hoy existe, somos parte de un collar de imcomprensible belleza y falta de sentido.”

“No sospeché la insignificancia de mi sueño. Creí haber concebido el sueño más vasto de mi generación: quse ser mago. Ésa era mi idea de la gloria. He aquí una súplica basada en toda mi experiencia: no seas mago, sé mágico.”

“Yo no sé nada de amor, pero algo como el amor arrancó de mi garganta, con mil anzuelos, las siguientes palabras: -PORQUE TE NECESITO, F.”

“Suzanne takes you down to her place near the river You can hear the boats go by You can spend the night beside her And you know that she's half crazy But that's why you want to be there And she feeds you tea and oranges That come all the way from China And just when you mean to tell her That you have no love to give her Then she gets you on her wavelength And she lets the river answer”

“Now Suzanne takes your 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”

“Everything has a crack in it; that's how the light gets in.”

“I found that things became a lot easier when I no longer expected to win. You abandon your masterpiece and sink into the real masterpiece.”

“The most precious secret has been leaked:There is no Opposition!”

“I am locked in a very expensive suitold elegant and enduringOnly my hair has been able to get freebut someone has been leavingtheir dandruff in itNow I will tell youall there is to know about optimismEach day in hub cap mirrorin soup reflectionin other people's spectaclesI check my hairfor an army of alpinistsfor Indian rope trick mastersfor tangled aviatorsfor dove and albatrossfor insect suicidesfor abominable snowmenI check my hairfor aerialists of every kindDedicated as an automatic elevatorI comb my hair for possibilitiesI stick my neck outI lean illegally from locomotive windowsand only for the barberdo I wear a hat”

“The day wasn't exactly my ownsince I checkedand found it on a public calendar.Tripping over many pairs of legsas I walked down the parkI also learned my lustwas not so rare a masterpiece.”

“Even without the mushroom cloudstill I would have hatedListenI would have done the same thingseven if there were no deathI will not be held like a drunkardunder the cold tap of factsI refuse the universal alibi”

“There is a war between the rich and poor, a war between the man and the woman. There is a war between the ones who say there is a war and the ones who say there isn't.”

“You don't know me from the wind you never will, you never did I'm the little jew who wrote the Bible.I've seen the nations rise and fall I've heard their stories, heard them all but love's the only engine of survival.”

“Show me slowly what I onlyknow the limits ofDance me to the end of love”

“There is a crack in everything”

“The sweetest little song:You go your wayI'll go your way too!”

“You should gofrom place to placerecovering the poemsthat have been written for youto which you can affix your signature.Don't discuss these matterswith anyone.Retrieve. Retrieve.When the basket is fullsomeone will appearto whom you can present it.”

“We are not mad. We are human.We want to love, and someone must forgive us for the paths we take to love, for the paths are many and dark, and we are ardent and cruel in our journey.”

“Stunned and still not suffering. Swollen with care and anxiety and still not suffering. Useless, old and full of grief, but still not suffering.”

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

“I don't want to be a star, merely dying.”

“You came to me this morningAnd you handled me like meatYou’d have to be a man to knowHow good that feels, how sweet”

“He never described himself as a poet or his work as poetry. The fact that the lines do not come to the edge of the page is no guarantee. Poetry is a verdict, not an occupation. He hated to argue about the techniques of verse. The poem is a dirty, bloody, burning thing that has to be grabbed first with bare hands. Once the fire celebrated Light, the dirt Humility, the blood Sacrifice. Now the poets are professional fire-eaters, freelancing at any carnival. The fire goes down easily and honours no one in particular.”

“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.”

“If you want a loverI'll do anything you ask me to.And if you want another kind of loveI'll wear a mask for you.”

“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.”

“When I have not rage or sorrow, and you depart from me, then I am most afraid. When the belly is full, and the mind has its sayings, then I fear for my soul; I rush to you as a child at night breaks into its parents' room. Do not forget me in my satisfaction. When the heart grins at itself, the world is destroyed. And I am found alone with the husks and the shells. Then the dangerous moment comes: I am too great to ask for help. I have other hopes. I legislate from the fortress of my disappointments, with a set jaw. Overthrow this even terror with a sweet remembrance: when I was with you, when my soul delighted you, when I was what you wanted. My heart sings of your longing for me, and my thoughts climb down to marvel at your mercy. I do not fear as you gather up my days. Your name is the sweetness of time, and you carry me close into the night, speaking consolations, drawing down lights from the sky, saying, See how the night has no terror for one who remembers the Name.”

“I almost went to bedwithout rememberingthe four white violetsI put in the button-holeof your green sweaterand how i kissed you thenand you kissed meshy as though I’dnever been your lover”

“At first first nothing will happen to usand later on it will happen to us again.”

“The flowers that I left in the ground, that I did not gather for you, today I bring them all back, to let them grow forever, not in poems or marble, but where they fell and rotted. And the ships in their great stalls, huge and transitory as heroes, ships I could not captain, today I bring them back to let them sail forever, not in model or ballad, but where they were wrecked and scuttled. And the child on whose shoulders I stand, whose longing I purged with public, kingly discipline, today I bring him back to languish forever, not in confession or biography, but where he flourished, growing sly and hairy. It is not malice that draws me away, draws me to renunciation, betrayal: it is weariness, I go for weariness of thee, Gold, ivory, flesh, love, God, blood, moon- I have become the expert of the catalogue. My body once so familiar with glory, My body has become a museum: this part remembered because of someone's mouth, this because of a hand, this of wetness, this of heat. Who owns anything he has not made? With your beauty I am as uninvolved as with horses' manes and waterfalls. This is my last catalogue. I breathe the breathless I love you, I love you - and let you move forever.”

“Do not be a magician - be magic!”

“Dream after dream we all lie in each other's arms”

“..you wanted to be the Superman who was never Clark Kent”

“How can I begin anything new with all of yesterday in me?”

“Games are nature's most beautiful creation”

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

“DEAR DI­ARYYou are greater than the BibleAnd the Con­fer­ence of the BirdsAnd the Up­an­ishadsAll put to­geth­erYou are more se­vereThan the Scrip­turesAnd Ham­mura­bi’s CodeMore dan­ger­ous than Luther’s 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”

“You have the lovers,they are nameless, their histories only for each other,and you have the room, the bed, and the windows.Pretend it is a ritual.Unfurl the bed, bury the lovers, blacken the windows,let them live in that house for a generation or two.No one dares disturb them.Visitors in the corridor tip-toe past the long closed door,they listen for sounds, for a moan, for a song:nothing is heard, not even breathing.You know they are not dead,you can feel the presence of their intense love.Your children grow up, they leave you,they have become soldiers and riders.Your mate dies after a life of service.Who knows you? Who remembers you?But in your house a ritual is in progress:It is not finished: it needs more people.One day the door is opened to the lover's chamber.The room has become a dense garden,full of colours, smells, sounds you have never known.The bed is smooth as a wafer of sunlight,in the midst of the garden it stands alone.In the bed the lovers, slowly and deliberately and silently,perform the act of love.Their eyes are closed,as tightly as if heavy coins of flesh lay on them.Their lips are bruised with new and old bruises.Her hair and his beard are hopelessly tangled.When he puts his mouth against her shouldershe is uncertain whether her shoulderhas given or received the kiss.All her flesh is like a mouth.He carries his fingers along her waistand feels his own waist caressed.She holds him closer and his own arms tighten around her.She kisses the hand besider her mouth.It is his hand or her hand, it hardly matters,there are so many more kisses.You stand beside the bed, weeping with happiness,you carefully peel away the sheetsfrom the slow-moving bodies.Your eyes filled with tears, you barely make out the lovers,As you undress you sing out, and your voice is magnificentbecause now you believe it is the first human voiceheard in that room.The garments you let fall grow into vines.You climb into bed and recover the flesh.You close your eyes and allow them to be sewn shut.You create an embrace and fall into it.There is only one moment of pain or doubtas you wonder how many multitudes are lying beside your body,but a mouth kisses and a hand soothes the moment away.”

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

“Please make me empty, if I'm empty then I can receive, if I can receive it means it comes from somewhere outside of me, if it comes from outside of me I'm not alone! I cannot bear this loneliness. Above all it is loneliness.”

“Así como un ave en su jaula.Así como un bebedor entre el bullicio de la medianoche,así he intentado ser libre, a mi manera.”

“I bargain now. I offer buttons for his love.”

“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.”

“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. 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.”

“When you call me close to tell me your body is not beautiful I want to summon the eyes and hidden mouths of stone and light and water to testify against you. ”

“Well I am the one who loves changing from nothing to one.”

“Blessed is the covenant of love, the covenant of mercy, useless light behind the terror, deathless song in the house of night.”

“Blessed are you who circled desire with a blade, and the garden with fiery swords, and heaven and earth with a word.”