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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.

Leonard Cohen

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Leonard Cohen
Age: 82 †
Born: 1934
Born: September 21
Died: 2016
Died: November 7
Film Actor
Lyricist
Musician
Novelist
Pianist
Poet
Record Producer
Screenwriter
Singer
Singer-Songwriter
Street Artist
Writer
Leonard Norman Cohen
Jikan
Verse
Verses
Realising
Work
Long
Good
Time
Discard

More quotes by Leonard Cohen

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[Prozac] didn't seem to have any effect whatsoever on my melancholy, my dark vision, and everything else that I'd taken it for.
Leonard Cohen
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You can do anything you want to [ in ashram] if you can find the time. It's a very rigorous day. It starts at 2:30 in the morning and often doesn't end until midnight, so if you can actually find a moment to have a drink or a smoke, you're quite welcome to, as long as it doesn't interfere with your capacity to follow the schedule.
Leonard Cohen
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Avoid the flourish. Do not be afraid to be weak. Do not be ashamed to be tired. You look good when you’re tired. You look like you could go on forever. Now come into my arms. You are the image of my beauty .
Leonard Cohen
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The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world.
Leonard Cohen
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To the men and women who own men and women those of us meant to be lovers we will not pardon you for wasting our bodies and time
Leonard Cohen
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Most of our distractions are designed to invite us away from this recognition, which is a good idea.
Leonard Cohen
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Seriousness is the deepest pleasure we have.
Leonard Cohen
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Follow me, the wise man said, but he walked behind.
Leonard Cohen
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The wars they will be fought again The holy dove be caught again bought and sold and bought again the dove is never free.
Leonard Cohen
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Dance me to your beauty with a burning violin Dance me through the panic 'til I'm gathered safely in Lift me like an olive branch and be my homeward dove Dance me to the end of love
Leonard Cohen
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Growing old becomes clear to you at a certain point. I think it's after the age of 70 you realize - you begin to actually be convinced - you're growing older.
Leonard Cohen
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In streams of light I clearly saw The dust you seldom see, Out of which the Nameless makes A Name for one like me... All busy in the sunlight The flecks did float and dance, And I was tumbled up with them In formless circumstance.
Leonard Cohen
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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
Leonard Cohen
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Your servant here, he has been told to say it clear, to say it cold: It's over, it ain't going any further And now the wheels of heaven stop you feel the devil's riding crop Get ready for the future: it is murder
Leonard Cohen
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I think culture's always been violent, and it is something we find very entertaining. Not only does it reflect our social reality, but it also reflects our psychic reality.
Leonard Cohen
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I don't have any spiritual strategy.
Leonard Cohen
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It's easy to look down from the summit you've reached, or even the summit I've reached, and talk about the responsibilities of the artist, but most people are just trying to get their foot in the door and make a living.
Leonard Cohen
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He can love the shape of human beings, the fine and twisted shapes of the heart. It is good to have among us such men, such balancing monsters of love.
Leonard Cohen
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The dreamers ride against the men of action. Oh see the men of action falling back.
Leonard Cohen
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A saint is someone who has achieved a remote human possibility. It is impossible to say what that possibility is. I think it has something to do with the energy of love.
Leonard Cohen