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I Kind Of Limp Along Like So Many Of Us Do In These Realms. Occasionally I've Felt The Grace Of Another Presence In My Life. But I Can't Develop Any Kind Of Spiritual Structure On That.

-Leonard Cohen

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I Kind Of Limp

Leonard Cohen

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I Kind Of Limp Along Like So Many Of Us Do In These Realms. Occasionally I've Felt The Grace Of Another Presence In My Life. But I Can't Develop Any Kind Of Spiritual Structure On That.

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You Can Say That I've Grown Bitter But Of This You Can Be Sure. The Rich Have Get Their Channels In The Bedrooms Of The Poor. And There's A Mighty Judgement Coming But I May Be Wrong.

It's True That All The Men You Knew Were Dealers Who Said They Were Through With Dealing Every Time You Gave Them Shelter. I Know That Kind Of Man It's Hard To Hold The Hand Of Anyone Who Is Reaching For The Sky Just To Surrender.

But I'm Stubborn As Those Garbage Bags That Time Cannot Decay, I'm Junk But I'm Still Holding Up This Little Wild Bouquet: Democracy Is Coming To The U.s.a.

I'd Written A Lot Of Songs With Hummingbirds In Them. None Of Them Ever Came To Anything, But I Did Write A Few Lines Last Month. It Went Like This: 'listen To The Hummingbird Whose Wings You Cannot See. Listen To The Hummingbird, Don't Listen To Me'.

A Kite Is A Victim You Are Sure Of. You Love It Because It Pulls.

In Our Rags Of Light, All Dressed To Kill.

The Dreamers Ride Against The Men Of Action. Oh See The Men Of Action Falling Back.

We All Are Motivated By Deep Impulses And Deep Appetites To Serve, Even Though We May Not Be Able To Locate That Which We Are Hoping To Serve. So This Is Just A Part Of My Nature And I Think Everybody Else's Nature To Offer Oneself At The Critical Moment When The Emergency Becomes Articulate. It's Only Then That We Can Locate That Willingness To Serve.

Critical Moments

Reality Is One Of The Possibilities I Cannot Afford To Ignore

A Woman Watches Her Body Uneasily, As Though It Were An Unreliable Ally In The Battle For Love.

When You're Younger, You Do Have That Thing That You Were Talking About Where The Mouth Goes Dry. I Mean You Have Reactions, And You Do Fall In Love.

Falling In Love

I Think What We Like About Music - And What We Like About Art In General....is That Enterprise That Stops Our Minds From Spinning. Because We're Always All Over The Place. A Good Song, A Good Lyric Is A Movie: It Will Just Focus And Calm And Confer Significance On This Completely Bewildering Reality That All Of Us Live In.

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.

...a Young Nurse Is Standing Close Behind Me Wondering Whether She Is Being Drawn By My Power Or Her Charity.

I'm Afraid To Live Any Place But In Expectation. I'm No Life-risk.

I've Never Thought Of Myself As A Religious Person.

Religious Person

Adam [cohen] Is A Great Singer-songwriter In His Own Right.

Singer-songwriters

Most Of The Time One Is Discouraged By The Work, But Now And Again By Some Grace Something Stands Out And Invites You To Work On It, To Elaborate It Or Animate It In Some Way. It's A Mysterious Process.

There Are No Letters In The Mailbox And There Are No Grapes Upon The Vine And There Are No Chocolates In Your Boxes Anymore And There Are No Diamonds In The Mine

History Is A Needle For Putting Men Asleep Anointed With The Poison Of All They Want To Keep.

I'm Never Sure Why I Do Anything, To Tell You The Truth.

The Obstacles Are Great And The Suffering Is Great And People Have Got To Make A Living.

I Always Considered Myself A Minor Writer. My Province Is Small, And I Try To Explore It Very, Very Thoroughly.

... I Didn't Fall In Love Of Course It's Never Up To You But She Was Walking Back And Forth And I Was Passing Through

Falling In Love

Anyone Who's Been A Heavy Drinker And Heavy Smoker And Has The Good Future To Survive That And Give It Up Knows What A Very Different Kind Of Daily Existence One Has. I Was Smoking A Couple Of Packs Of Cigarettes A Day. And I Was Drinking Heavily On Tours.

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.

I Know There Is An Eye That Watches All Of Us. There Is A Judgment That Weighs Everything We Do. And Before This Great Force, Which Is Greater Than Any Government I Stand In Awe And I Kneel In Respect And It Is To This Great Judgment That I Dedicate This Next Song...

The Candles Burned The Moon Went Down The Polished Hill The Milky Town Transparent, Weightless, Luminous Uncovering The Two Of Us On That Fundamental Ground Where Love's Unwilled, Unleashed, Unbound And Half The Perfect World Is Found.

A Heavy Burden Lifted From My Soul, I Heard That Love Was Out Of My Control.

I Never Really Liked Poetry Readings; I Liked To Read Poetry By Myself, But I Liked Singing, Chanting My Lyrics To This Jazz Group.

I Think That Really What Our Training, What Our Culture, Our Religious Institutions, Our Educational And Cultural Institutions Should Be About Is Preparing The Heart For That Journey Outside Of The Cage Of The Ribs.

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.

As Soon As Anybody Does One Of My Songs, I Rejoice. This Particular Case Of All These Great Singers Doing My Work - The Implications Are Very Rich And The Temptation To Think Of The Outcome Of These Masses Of The Mainstream Injecting My Work Into The Marketplace, It's A Very Sweet Speculation.

You Were Marlon Brando, I Was Steve Mcqueen, You Were K.y. Jelly, I Was Vaseline.

We Actually Lead Very Violent, Passionate Lives And I Think That We're Hungry For Insights Into This Condition. That's Why We Get All That Stuff On Television. It's Really Where We Are, Really What We Are.

Everybody Knows That You've Been Faithful, Give Or Take A Night Or Two.

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.

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.

It Doesn't Matter What You Do Because It's Going To Happen Anyway.

There Is A War Between The Ones Who Say There Is A War And The Ones Who Say There Isn't.

She Was Made Of Flesh And Eyelashes.

When It All Comes Down To Dust I Will Kill You If I Must , I Will Help You If I Can. When It All Comes Down To Dust I Will Help You If I Must, I Will Kill You If I Can.

And I'll Bury My Soul In A Scrapbook, With The Photographs There And The Moths.

Poetry Is Just The Evidence Of Life. If Your Life Is Burning Well, Poetry Is Just The Ash.

The Less I Was Of Who I Was, The Better I Felt.

After A While, If You Are Sufficiently Bored Or Unemployed, You May Want To Read It From Cover To Cover.

I Would Like To Work With Pat [ Leonard] In Any Capacity. I Would Love To Hear His Versions.

I Lit A Thin Green Candle To Make You Jealous Of Me, But The Room Just Filled Up With Mosquitoes.

I Don't Have Any Spiritual Strategy.

I Would Say The Hummingbird Really Deserves The Royalties On [some Of My Songs].

This Particular School Of Zen Has Always Considered Itself The Marines Of The Spiritual World, So It Has A Kind Of Bias Against Conceptual Thinking In Favor Of A Very Rigorous Physical Life.

Take One Step To The Side And It's All Absurd.

We Are Ugly But We Have The Music.

Your Body Will Never Be Familiar.

What A Beautiful Testament To The Creative Spirit And Its True Motives, To Creative Contribution Coming From A Place Of Purpose Rather Than A Hunger For Profit.

Love Is Not A Victory March

Yes, You Who Must Leave Everything That You Cannot Control, It Begins With Your Family, And Soon It Comes Round To Your Soul. Well I've Been Where You're Hanging, I Think I Can See How You're Pinned: When You're Not Feeling Holy Your Loneliness Says That You've Sinned.

Poetry Is A Verdict Rather Than An Intention.

Maybe There's A God Above But The Only Thing I Learned From Love Was How To Shoot At Somebody Who Outdrew You.

Everybody Knows The Dice Are Loaded.

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.

Who Could Have Foretold The Heart Grows Old From Touching Others

Everyone Has A Kind Of Magical System That They Employ In The Hopes That This Will Open Up The Channels.

You Lose Your Grip, And Then You Slip Into The Masterpiece.

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.

Even Damnation Is Poisoned With Rainbows.

Someone Gave Me Wishes And I Wished For An Embrace.

Your Heart Opens And Of Course You're Completely Panicked Because You're Used To Guarding This Organ With Your Life.

And Here You Are Hurried, And Here You Are Gone; And Here Is The Love, That It's All Built Upon.

As The Mist Leaves No Scar On The Dark Green Hill So My Body Leaves No Scar On You And Never Will

From Bitter Searching Of The Heart, Quickened With Passion And With Pain We Rise To Play A Greater Part This Is The Faith From Which We Start.

This Civil Action Is Another Case Of A Tragedy That Has Become All Too Familiar In The Music Industry: A Business Manager And Professional Advisers Exploit An Immensely Talented Artist's Loyalty And Trust Through Greed, Self-dealing, Concealment, Knowing Misrepresentation And Reckless Disregard For Professional Fiduciary Duties.

We All Need That Experience Of Forgetting Who You Are. Forgetting Who You Are Is Such A Delicious Experience And So Frightening That We're In This Conflicted Predicament.

It's Four In The Morning, The End Of December I'm Writing You Now Just To See If You're Better.

But Remember When I Moved In You And The Holy Dove Was Moving Too And Every Breath We Drew Was Hallelujah.

I Would Like To Remind The Management That The Drinks Are Watered And The Hat-check Girl Has Syphilis And The Band Is Composed Of Former Ss Monsters However Since It Is New Year's Eve And I Have Lip Cancer I Will Place My Paper Hat On My Concussion And Dance

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.

Here Is Your Cross, Your Nails And Your Hill; And Here Is Your Love, That Lists Where It Will

You Have To Keep Cracking Yourself Open Or You Become A Parody Of Yourself.

Even Without The Mushroom Cloud Still I Would Have Hated Listen I Would Have Done The Same Things Even If There Were No Death I Will Not Be Held Like A Drunkard Under The Cold Tap Of Facts I Refuse The Universal Alibi

It’s A Depressing Habit You Have Of Loving To Sneeze And Of Eating Apples As If They Were Juicier For You And Being The First One To Exclaim How Good The Movie Is. You Depress People. We Like Apples Too.

You Win A While, And Then It’s Done - Your Little Winning Streak.

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 .

The Art Of Longing's Over, And It's Never Coming Back.

I Speak Of A Clinical Depression That Is The Background Of Your Entire Life, A Background Of Anguish And Anxiety, A Sense That Nothing Goes Well, That Pleasure Is Unavailable And All Your Strategies Collapse.

Maybe We, The Cultural Workers , Could Apply Ourselves. We're Not Going To Resolve It In This Moment Or Even In This Generation, But Perhaps As Some Kind Of Agenda We Could Invite Our Writers And Cultural Workers To Address The Problem A Little More Responsibly, Because People Are Suffering Tremendously From A Want Of Data.

Ordinary Eternal Machinery, Like The Grinding Of The Stars

Why Don't You Try To Do Without Him, Why Don't You Try To Live Alone? Do You Really Need His Hands For Your Passion? Do You Really Need His Heart For Your Throne? Do You Need His Labor For Your Baby? Do You Need His Beast For The Bone? Do You Need To Hold A Leash To Be A Lady? I Know That You Can Make It, You Can Make It On Your Own.

We're In A World Where There's Famine And Hunger And People Are Dodging Bullets And Having Their Nails Pulled Out In Dungeons So It's Very Hard For Me To Place Any High Value On The Work That I Do To Write A Song. Yeah, I Work Hard But Compared To What?

Dream After Dream We All Lie In Each Other's Arms

Stunned And Still Not Suffering. Swollen With Care And Anxiety And Still Not Suffering. Useless, Old And Full Of Grief, But Still Not Suffering.

I Always Felt I Was Scraping The Bottom Of The Barrel Trying To Get A Song Together.

Bottom Of The Barrel

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.

I Wish I Could Say Everything In One Word. I Hate All The Things That Can Happen Between The Beginning Of A Sentence And The End.

This Mental Space Is Occupied And Everything Is Mine.

This Is The Most Challenging Activity That Humans Get Into, Which Is Love. You Know, Where We Have The Sense That We Can't Live Without Love. That Life Has Very Little Meaning Without Love.

I’ve Seen The Nations Rise And Fall. I’ve Heard Their Stories, Heard Them All, But Love’s The Only Engine Of Survival.

Songs Don’t Dignify Human Activity. Human Activity Dignifies The Song.

It's Been A Long Time Since I've Stood On A Stage In London. Was About 14 Or 15 Years Ago, I Was 60 Years Old, Just A Kid With A Crazy Dream. Since Then I've Taken A Lot Of Prozac, Paxil, Wellbutrin, Effexor, Ritalin, Focalin. I've Also Studied Deeply In The Philosophies And The Religions, But Cheerfulness Kept Breaking Through.

My Friends Are Gone And My Hair Is Grey. I Ache In Places I Used To Play. And I’m Crazy For Love But I’m Not Coming On. I’m Just Paying My Rent Every Day In The Tower Of Song.

I Listen To The Radio And I Like All Kinds Of Music, You Know, But I Like To Hear From People Who Have Been There. Hank Williams Has Been There.

Never Make A Decision When You Need To Pee.

This Is Every Musician's Dream, To Stand In Front Of An Audience And Not Have To Prove Your Credentials.

People Used To Say My Music Was Too Difficult Or Too Obscure, And I Never Set Out To Be Difficult Or Obscure. I Just Set Out To Write What I Felt As Honestly As I Could, And I Am Delighted When Other People Feel A Part Of Themselves In The Music.

Ah, Grief Makes Us Precise!

Comic Books, Movies, Radio Programmes Centered Their Entertainment Around The Fact Of Torture. With The Clearest Of Consciences, With A Patriotic Intensity, Children Dreamed, Talked, Acted Orgies Of Physical Abuse. Imaginations Were Released To Wander On A Reconnaissance Mission From Cavalry To Dachau. European Children Starved And Watched Their Parents Scheme And Die. Here We Grew Up With Toy Whips. Early Warning Against Our Future Leaders, The War Babies.

It's Time That We Began To Laugh And Cry And Cry And Laugh About It All Again.

The Troubles Came And I Saved What I Could Save. A Thread Of Light, A Particle, A Wave.

First We Take Manhattan, Then We Take Berlin

[i Had A Sense Of Interior Panic].always. I Didn't Really Know What To Call It For A Long Time, But I Have A Friend In Greece Who Used That Word Panic A Lot, And I Found Myself Resisting It, Until I Totally Accepted That As A Precise Description Of My Interior Condition. It Was Mostly Panic From One Moment To The Next. And Nothing Much Else Was Going On.

I Was 15 When I First Became Deeply Touched By The Rhythm And Structure Of Words.

To Keep Our Hearts Open Is Probably The Most Urgent Responsibility You Have As You Get Older.

A Poem Has A Certain - A Different Time. For Instance, A Poem Is A Very Private Experience, And It Doesn't Have A Driving Tempo. In Other Words, You Know, You Can Go Back And Forward; You Can Comeback; You Can Linger. You Know, It's A Completely Different Time Reference.

May Everyone Live, And May Everyone Die. Hello, My Love, And My Love, Goodbye.

Other People Singing My Songs Is Something That I've Never Been Casual About. I've Always Been Very Touched By It And I Always Go Into Immediate Critical Suspension.

Here's To The Few Who Forgive What You Do, And The Fewer Who Don't Even Care

The Duty Of Lovers Is To Tarnish The Golden Rule

I Can't Run No More With That Lawless Crowd While The Killers In High Places Say Their Prayers Out Loud. But They've Summoned, They've Summoned Up A Thundercloud And They're Going To Hear From Me. Ring The Bells That Still Can Ring Forget Your Perfect Offering There Is A Crack In Everything That's How The Light Gets In.

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.

Act The Way You'd Like To Be And Soon You'll Be The Way You Act.

Probably All Cultures, Certainly Western Culture, Always Have Been Violent.

Western Culture

I Smile When I'm Angry , I Cheat And I Lie. I Do What I Have To Do To Get By. But I Know What Is Wrong And I Know What Is Right , And I'd Die For The Truth In My Secret Life .

May You Be Surrounded By Friends And Family, And If This Is Not Your Lot, May The Blessings Find You In Your Solitude.

Family And Friends

I Loved You For A Long, Long Time I Know This Love Is Real It Don't Matter How It All Went Wrong That Don't Change The Way I Feel And I Can't Believe That Time's Gonna Heal This Wound I'm Speaking Of There Ain't No Cure For Love

I Think The Term Poet Is A Very Exalted Term And Should Be Applied To A Man At The End Of His Work. When He Looks Back Over The Body Of His Work And He's Written Poetry Then Let The Verdict Be That He's A Poet.

What [prozac] Does Is Completely Annihilate The Sexual Drive, So The Question Of Passion Hardly Arises.

And This Is Our Time-keeper, With A Passion For Percussion

The Last Refuge Of The Insomniac Is A Sense Of Superiority To The Sleeping World.

I've Always Held The Song In High Regard Because Songs Have Got Me Through So Many Sinks Of Dishes And So Many Humiliating Courting Events.

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

And May My Bronze Name / Touch Always Her Thousand Fingers / Grow Brighter With Her Weeping / Until I Am Fixed Like A Galaxy / And Memorized / In Her Secret And Fragile Skies.

Sail On, Sail On, O' Might Ship Of State. To The Shores Of Need, Past The Reefs Of Greed, Through The Squalls Of Hate. Sail On, Sail On, Sail On.

You Say I Took The Name In Vain I Don't Even Know The Name But If I Did, Well Really, What's It To You? There's A Blaze Of Light In Every Word It Doesn't Matter Which You Heard The Holy Or The Broken Hallelujah

I've Seen The Future And It's Murder.

In The Broken Places, The Light Shines Through.

As Our Eyes Grow Accustomed To Sight They Armour Themselves Against Wonder.

If You're Squeezed For Information, / That's When You've Got To Play It Dumb: / You Just Say You're Out There Waiting / For The Miracle, For The Miracle To Come.

And What Can I Tell You, My Brother, My Killer, What Can I Possibly Say? I Guess That I Miss You, I Guess I Forgive You, I'm Glad You Stood In My Way

Raise A Million Filters And The Rain Will Not Be Clean, Until The Longing For It Be Refined In Deep Confession.

Maybe The Culture Is [particularly] Shabby Now. Maybe It's Because I'm Over Sixty, That I Can Feel That About Everything.

I Didn't Want To Write For Pay. I Wanted To Be Paid For What I Write.

I Felt Like If Any Two People Had Any Kind Of Sexual Affinity For Each Other They Had To Sleep With Each Other Immediately, Otherwise It Was A Terrible Betrayal And Waste...fortunately, I'm Relieved Of Those Obsessions Now. It's Really Wonderful. It's Really Wonderful Not Feeling You Have To Sleep With Everybody.

It’s A Pity If Someone… Has To Console Himself For The Wreck Of His Days With The Notion That Somehow His Voice, His Work Embodies The Deepest, Most Obscure, Freshest, Rawest Oyster Of Reality In The Unfathomable Refrigerator Of The Heart’s Ocean, But I Am Such A One, And There You Have It.

If You're Lucky, You Can Keep The Vehicle Healthy And Responsive Over The Years. If You're Lucky, Your Own Intentions Have Very Little To Do With This.

Well It's True, Ever Since I Stopped Eating Meat I Feel A Lot Better Among Animals, I Feel I Can Be Much More Honest When I Pat A Dog.

Creators Care Nothing For Their Systems Except That They Be Unique.

Although Only One Man May Be Receiving The Favors Of A Woman, All Men In Her Presence Are Warmed. That's The Great Generosity Of Women And The Great Generosity Of The Creator Who Worked It Out Is That There Are No Unilateral Agreements On Sexuality.

We Are Awakening From The Dream Of Isolation, From The Dream Of Loneliness, And It's A Terrible Shock.

Something I Wrote Quite A Few Years Ago Was, "the Voices In My Head, They Don't Care What I Do, They Just Want To Argue The Matter Through And Through." It Is A Common Mistake, To Think You're Going To Go Into Some Kind Of Spiritual Practice And You're Going To Be Relieved Of The Human Burdens, From Human Crosses Like Thought, Jealousy, Despair - In Fact, If Anything, These Feelings Are Amplified.

Well I See You There With The Rose In Your Teeth One More Thin Gypsy Thief... Yes, And Thanks, For The Trouble You Took From Her Eyes I Thought It Was There For Good So I Never Tried... And Jane Came By With A Lock Of Your Hair She Said That You Gave It To Her That Night That You Planned To Go Clear.

I Greet You From The Other Side Of Sorrow And Despair, With A Love So Vast And Shattered It Will Reach You Everywhere.

At The Very Center Of Our Culture Is A Crucified Man, A Tortured Man Hanging On A Cross Of Wood. You Have An Image Of Violence At The Very Center Of Our Spiritual Investigation.

G-d Is Alive. Magic Is Afoot. G-d Is Afoot. Magic Is Alive.

There's No Concession To The Fact That Dylan Might Be A More Sophisticated Singer Than Whitney Houston, That He's Probably The Most Sophisticated Singer We've Had In A Generation. Nobody Is Identifying Our Popular Singers Like A Matisse Or Picasso. Dylan's A Picasso - That Exuberance, Range, And Assimilation Of The Whole History Of Music.

I Would Like To Study Judaism. I Feel That My Own Jewish Education Was Really Quite Superficial From A Certain Point Of View. Although I Think The Values Were Very Clear And Were Presented Very Clearly, There's - There Were Aspects Of The Whole Tradition That Were Not Emphasized. And, You Know, I've Come To Those Areas Myself As I've Grown Older. But I Would Like To Go Deeper.

Journalists, Especially English Journalists, Were Very Cruel To Me. They Said I Only Knew Three Chords When I Knew Five!

You Who Build These Altars Now To Sacrifice These Children , You Must Not Do It Anymore. A Scheme Is Not A Vision And You Never Have Been Tempted By A Demon Or A God .

Some Say That No One Ever Leaves Montreal, For That City, Like Canada Itself, Is Designed To Preserve The Past, A Past That Happened Somewhere Else.

I Don't Think You Can Write Novels On The Road. You Need A Certain Stability.

And Sometimes When The Night Is Slow The Wretched And The Meek We Gather Up Our Hearts And Go A Thousand Kisses Deep.

It Doesn't Matter How Anything Happens.

No Penance Serves To Renew Them, No Massive Transfusions Of Trust. Why Not Even Revenge Can Undo Them, So Twisted These Vows And So Crushed.

As A Young Man, Yeats Spoke To Me In A Way I Could Understand. Shakespeare I Couldn't Understand, But Yeats I Could. It Was His Subject Matter And Also I Really Admired The Way He Put His Personal Life On The Line.

His Vision Was Just Outstanding. If You Think Of Him In The Same Way As Pele Then You Would Come Close.

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.

Love Is The Only Engine Of Survival

Everybody Knows That The Dice Are Loaded, Everybody Rolls With Their Fingers Crossed, Everybody Knows That The War Is Over, Everybody Knows The Good Guys Lost.

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.

It Is Painful To Recall A Past Intensity, To Estimate Your Distance From The Belsen Heap, To Make Your Peace With Numbers. Just To Get Up Each Morning Is To Make A Kind Of Peace.

Today [people] Are Ready To Take Emergency Cures, Whatever They Are, If It's Violence, If It's A Fascination With Serial Killing Or Whatever - The Discomfort Is So Intense. Maybe It's Always Been Like That, Certainly It Is Now.

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.

I Am Not The One Who Loves - It's Love That Chooses Me.

One Is Distracted By This Notion That There Is Such An Thing As Inspiration, That It Comes Fast And Easy. And Some People Are Graced By That Style. I'm Not. So I Have To Work As Hard As Any Stiff To Come Up With My Payload

It's The Notion That There Is No Perfection - That There Is A Broken World And We Live With Broken Hearts And Broken Lives But Still There Is No Alibi For Anything. On The Contrary, You Have To Stand Up And Say Hallelujah Under Those Circumstances.

I Have Often Prayed For You Like This Let Me Have Her

My Son And My Daughter Have Both Been An Incredibly Sustaining Force, Especially Through This Recent Bad Patch [of Health]. So, I've Been Blessed And Grateful For Their Company And For Their Assistance.

I'm Planning A Catastrophe.

The Psychologists Are Valiantly Trying To Provide Us With Answers, The Religious People Are Trying To Provide Us With Answers. I Think It Properly Falls On The Cultural Workers To Investigate This Predicament With A Little Less Concern For The Marketplace And A Little More Concern For Their Higher Calling.

The Wars They Will Be Fought Again The Holy Dove Be Caught Again Bought And Sold And Bought Again; The Dove Is Never Free.

I Swear By This Song And By All That I Have Done Wrong, I Will Make It All Up To Thee.

It Is Different [to Perform In Israel] Because It Arises From Very Deep Wells Of Affiliation.

When You're Not Feeling Holy, Your Loneliness Says That You've Sinned.

I Turned My Back On The Devil, Turned My Back On The Angel Too.

I Said I Was Ready To Die Recently, And I Think I Was Exaggerating.that Declaration Of Readiness, No Matter What The Outcome, That's A Part Of Everyone's Soul.

Anything I Tell You Is An Alibi For Something Else." Then Let's Be Quiet Together.

First Of All Nothing Will Happen And A Little Later Nothing Will Happen Again.

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 Terrors For One Who Remembers The Name.

My Two Great Heroes Are W. B. Yeats And Federico Garcia Lorca.

A Sip Of Wine, A Cigarette, And Then It’s Time To Go. I Tidied Up The Kitchenette; I Tuned The Old Banjo. I’m Wanted At The Traffic-jam. They’re Saving Me A Seat.

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.

It's Like A Bear Stumbling Into A Beehive Or A Honey Cache: I'm Stumbling Right Into It And Getting Stuck, And It's Delicious And It's Horrible And I'm In It And It's Not Very Graceful And It's Very Awkward And It's Very Painful And Yet There's Something Inevitable About It.

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.

Does Anybody Have A Cigarette? I'm Looking Forward To That First Smoke. I've Been Looking Forward To [it] For About 30 Years.

Coroner's Inquest: Death By Drowning. And He Hasn't Been To The Sea-shore In Ten Years.

I Couldn't Feel So I Learned To Touch.

I've Never Thought Of Myself As A Singer Anyway. . . I've Been Free From Those Considerations Because So Many People Over The Years Told Me I Don't Have A Voice. I Kind Of Bought That. I Never Thought That Much About It To Begin With. I Knew I Didn't Have One Of The Great Voices. As My Damon Runyanesque Lawyer Used To Say, "none Of You Guys Can Sing. If I Want To Hear Singing, I'll Go To The Metropolitan Opera."

He Hated The Men Floating In Sleep In The Big Stone Houses. Because Their Lives Were Ordered And Their Rooms Tidy. Because They Got Up Every Morning And Did Their Public Work. Because They Weren't Going To Dynamite Their Factories And Have Naked Parties In The Fire.

The Dream" "o I Had Such A Wonderful Dream, She Said. I Dreamed You Made Love To Me. At Last, He Said To Himself, The Spirit Has Taken Up Some Of The Heavy Work.

The Big Change Is The Proximity To Death.

My Interest In This Pack Of Failures Betrays My Character.

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