Leonard Cohen
Leonard Cohen
Leonard Norman Cohen, CC GOQis a Canadian singer, songwriter, poet and novelist. His work has explored religion, politics, isolation, sexuality, and personal relationships. Cohen has been inducted into both the Canadian Music Hall of Fame and the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame as well as the American Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He is also a Companion of the Order of Canada, the nation's highest civilian honour. In 2011, Cohen received a Princess of Asturias Awards for literature...
NationalityCanadian
ProfessionFolk Singer
Date of Birth21 September 1934
CityWestmount, Canada
CountryCanada
You who wish to conquer pain, you must learn what makes one kind.
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!
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.
I didn't want to write for pay. I wanted to be paid for what I write.
Out of the thousands who are known or who want to be known as poets, maybe one or two are genuine and the rest are fakes, hanging around the sacred precincts, trying to look like the real thing.
Only in Canada could somebody with a voice like mine win 'Vocalist of the Year'.
Every heart to Love will come, but like a refugee
May you be surrounded by friends and family, and if this is not your lot, may the blessings find you in your solitude.
We are so lightly here. It is in love that we are made. In love we disappear.
I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That's what sitting on your ass does to your face.
Any startling piece of work has a subversive element in it, a delicious element often. Subversion is only disagreeable when it manifests in political or social activity.
Here's to the few who forgive what you do, and the fewer who don't even care
even damnation is poisoned with rainbows.
It's time that we began to laugh and cry and cry and laugh about it all again.