Leonard Cohen

Ah, you loved me as a loser, but now you're worried that I just might win . . .

I do not think that a saint dissolves the chaos even for himself, for there is something arrogant and warlike in the notion of a man setting the universe in order. It is a kind of balance that is his glory . . .

I don't consider myself a pessimist at all. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel completely soaked to the skin.

Please understand, I never had a secret chart
to get me to the heart of this
or any other matter.

A woman watches her body uneasily, as though it were an unreliable ally in the battle for love.

Act the way you'd like to be and soon you'll be the way you act.

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.

Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.

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

I don't consider myself a pessimist. I think of a pessimist as someone who is waiting for it to rain. And I feel soaked to the skin.

In dreams the truth is learned that all good works are done in the absence of a caress.

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.