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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.

-Leonard Cohen

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Israel, And You Who

Leonard Cohen

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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.

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The Older I Get, The Surer I Am That I'm Not Running The Show.

Undertow" "i Set Out One Night When The Tide Was Low There Were Signs In The Sky But I Did Not Know I'd Be Caught In The Grip Of The Undertow Ditched On A Beach Where The Sea Hates To Go With A Child In My Arms And A Chill In My Soul And My Heart The Shape Of A Begging Bowl

In Our Rags Of Light, All Dressed To Kill.

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

If I Knew Where The Good Songs Came From, I’d Go There More Often. It’s A Mysterious Condition. It’s Much Like The Life Of A Catholic Nun. You’re Married To A Mystery.

At First First Nothing Will Happen To Us And Later On It Will Happen To Us Again.

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

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.

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.

In Dreams The Truth Is Learned That All Good Works Are Done In The Absence Of A Caress.

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.

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

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

The Fact That My Songs Take A Long Time To Write Is No Guarantee Of Their Excellence.

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

Rust Rust Rust In The Engines Of Love And Time.

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

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.

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

I Have To Finish It In Order To Know Whether It Deserves To Survive.

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.

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 Have Often Prayed For You Like This Let Me Have Her

Everybody Knows The Dice Are Loaded.

I Read With Some Amusement My Reputation As A Ladies' Man. My Friends Are Amused By That, Too, Because They Know My Life.

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

A Community Is An Alibi For The Failure Of Individual Love.

Some People, It [songwriting] Comes Faster. Some People, It Comes Slower.

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

We Are So Small Between The Stars, So Large Against The Sky.

Even Damnation Is Poisoned With Rainbows.

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.

Well, I've Been Waiting, I Was Sure We'd Meet Between The Trains We're Waiting For I Think It's Time To Board Another Please Understand, I Never Had A Secret Chart To Get Me To The Heart Of This Or Any Other Matter

I Told The Truth, I Didn't Come To Fool You

You Are Locked Into Your Suffering And Your Pleasures Are The Seal.

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.

Now Suzanne Takes You 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 There Are Heroes In The Seaweed There Are Children In The Morning They Are Leaning Out For Love And They Will Lean That Way Forever While Suzanne Holds The Mirror And You Want To Travel With Her And You Want To Travel Blind And You Know That She Will Trust You For Shes Touched Your Perfect Body With Her Mind.

Part Of The Shabbiness Of Our Culture, If Indeed It Is Shabby, Is That It Doesn't Seem To Prepare People. With All The Songs About Love And All The Movies And All The Books, There Doesn't Seem To Be Any Way That We Can Prepare The Human Heart For This Experience.

She Was Made Of Flesh And Eyelashes.

I Think That All The Spiritual Training Is Just To Be Able To Allow You To Experience This From A Slightly Different Perspective - One That's A Little More Stabilized.

Any Of The Decisions That I Made, If One Could Actually Locate A Shape Or Form, Were All Within A Wall, The Landscape Of Music.

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.

Oh The Sisters Of Mercy, They Are Not Departed Or Gone.

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

Western Culture

You Go Your Way I'll Go Your Way Too

I Think That Any Songwriter - And I Think That Bob Dylan Knows This More Than All Of Us - You Don't Write The Songs Anyhow.

Someone Gave Me Wishes And I Wished For An Embrace.

Shouldering Your Loneliness Like A Gun That You Will Not Learn To Aim, You Stumble Into This Movie House Then You Climb, You Climb Into The Frame.

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.

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

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.

I Don't Think There's Any Difference Between A Crush And Profound Love. I Think The Experience Is That You Dissolve Your Sentries And Your Battalions For A Moment And You Really Do See That There Is This Unfixed Free-flowing Energy Of Emotion And Thought Between People, That It Really Is There.

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

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.

It Was A Dance Of Masks And Every Mask Was Perfect Because Every Mask Was A Real Face And Every Face Was A Real Mask So There Was No Mask And There Was No Face For There Was But One Dance In Which There Was But One Mask But One True Face Which Was The Same And Which Was A Thing Without A Name Which Changed And Changed Into Itself Over And Over.

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 .

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.

When You Stop Thinking About Yourself All The Time, A Certain Sense Of Repose Overtakes You.

Thinking About You

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.

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

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

[prozac] Didn't Seem To Have Any Effect Whatsoever On My Melancholy, My Dark Vision, And Everything Else That I'd Taken It For.

I Don't Know Which Side Is Anybody On Any More. I Don't Really Care. There Is A Moment When We Have To Transcend The Side We're On And Understand That We Are Creatures Of A Higher Order.

If You Want A Lover I'll Do Anything You Ask. If You Want A Different Kind Of Love I'll Wear A Mask. If You Want To Strike Me Down In Anger Here I Stand. If You Want A Partner In Life Take My Hand. I'm Your Man.

Lift Me Like An Olive Branch And Be My Homeward Dove Dance Me To The End Of Love.

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.

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

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

Certainly Within Any Decadent Period, You Would Probably Find The Purest Expressions Of Conviction, And I Do Not See That In Many Of The People I Know.

I Don't Really Understand That Process Called Reincarnation But If There Is Such A Thing I'd Like To Come Back As My Daughter's Dog.

To Have [adam's Cohen] Microscopic Attention To My Work Was Really A Great Privilege.

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.

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

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.

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.

Every Heart To Love Will Come, But Like A Refugee

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.

This Mental Space Is Occupied And Everything Is Mine.

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

We've Got To Temper Anything We Say With That. On The Other Hand, You've Got To Be Serious About What You Do. And You've Got To Understand The Price You Pay For Frivolity Or Just For Greed - It's A Very High Price, Especially If You're Involved In This Sacred Material, Which Is About The Human Heart And Human Desire And Human Tragedy.

We Are Ugly But We Have The Music.

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 .

If You Don't Become The Ocean, You'll Be Seasick Every Day.

I Am Not The One Who Loves - It's Love That Chooses Me. When Hatred With His Package Comes, You Forbid Delivery...

I Have Nothing Against The Queen Of England. Even In My Heart I Never Resented Her For Not Being Jackie Kennedy. She Is, To My Mind, A Very Gallant Lady, Victimized By Whoever It Is Who Designs The Tops Of Her Uniforms.

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.

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.

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

God Is Alive. Magic Is Afoot. God Is Alive. Magic Is Afoot. God Is Afoot. Magic Is Alive. Alive Is Afoot. Magic Never Died. God Never Sickened. Many Poor Men Lied. Many Sick Men Lied. Magic Never Weakened. Magic Never Hid. Magic Always Ruled. God Is Afoot. God Was Ruler Though His Funeral Lengthened. Though His Mourners Thickened Magic Never Fled.

The Winter Has Not Killed Usagain!

We Are So Lightly Here. It Is In Love That We Are Made. In Love We Disappear.

It's Hard To Hold The Hand Of Anyone Who Is Reaching For The Sky Just To Surrender

Only In Canada Could Somebody With A Voice Like Mine Win 'vocalist Of The Year'.

He Knew That Hair Couldn't Feel; He Kissed Her Hair.

Love Is A Fire/it Burns Everyone/it Disfigures Everyone/it Is The World's Excuse For Being Ugly.

Seven To Eleven Is A Huge Chunk Of Life, Full Of Dulling And Forgetting. It Is Fabled That We Slowly Lose The Gift Of Speech With Animals, That Birds No Longer Visit Our Windowsills To Converse. As Our Eyes Grow Accustomed To Sight They Armor Themselves Against Wonder.

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.

I've Expressed My Gratitude To My Son Many Times. And His Career Is Far From Undistinguished, And It Was A Great Privilege To Have Someone Of This Skill Bringing This Album To Conclusion.

Hallelujah" "your Faith Was Strong But You Needed Proof. You Saw Her Bathing On The Roof. Her Beauty And The Moonlight Overthrew You. She Tied You To A Kitchen Chair, She Broke Your Throne, And She Cut Your Hair. And From Your Lips She Drew The Hallelujah.

There Is A Crack In Everything, That's How The Light Gets In.

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

Singer-songwriters

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

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.

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...

I Want History To Jump On Canada's Spine With Sharp Skates.

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.

The Poor Stay Poor, The Rich Get Rich / Thats How It Goes / Everybody Knows.

I Guess You Go For Nothing, If You Really Want To Go That Far.

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.

I Always Loved Those Little Creatures [hummingbird], Always Feel Blessed When They Appear Nearby. There's A Magical Quality To Them. I Finally Put One In A Song.

You Who Wish To Conquer Pain, You Must Learn What Makes One Kind.

A Scar Is What Happens When The Word Is Made Flesh.

Wounds And Scars

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.

Be With Me In The Phases Of My Work Because My Brain Feels Like It Has Been Whipped And I Yearn To Make A Small Perfect Thing Which Will Live In Your Morning Like Curious Static Through A President's Elegy Or A Nude Hunchback Acquiring A Tan On The Crowded Oily Beach.

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

[patrick Leonard] Is Such A Magnificent Composer. I Don't Think There Is Anybody Working Today With Those Kind Of Skills That Could Translate One Of My Tunes Into That Really Beautiful Chamber Music.

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.

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

I Finally Broke Into The Prison I Found My Place In The Chain Even Damnation Is Poisoned With Rainbows

My Sense Of Proprietorship Has Been So Weak That Actually I Didn't Pay Attention And I Lost The Copyrights On A Lot Of The Songs.

I Heard Of A Man Who Says Words So Beautifully That If He Only Speaks Their Name Women Give Themselves To Him. If I Am Dumb Beside Your Body While Silence Blossoms Like Tumors On Our Lips It Is Because I Hear A Man Climb Stairs And Clear His Throat Outside Our Door.

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

Ring The Bells That Still Can Ring.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Garages, Barns And Attics Are Always Older Than The Buildings To Which They Are Attached.

They Ended Every Speech With The Word Hiro, Which Means: Like I Said. Thus Each Man Took Responsibility For Intruding Into The Inarticulate Murmur Of The Spheres. To Hiro They Added The Word Koue, A Cry Of Joy Or Distress, According To Whether It Was Sung Or Howled. Thus They Essayed To Piece The Mysterious Curtain Which Hangs Between All Talking Men: At The End Of Every Utterance A Man Stepped Back, So To Speak, And Attempted To Interpret His Words To The Listener, Attempted To Subvert The Beguiling Intellect With The Noise Of True Emotion.

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.

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

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

Bottom Of The Barrel

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.

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

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.

Silence And A Deeper Silence When The Crickets Hesitate

I'm Writing All The Time. And As The Songs Begin To Coalesce, I'm Not Doing Anything Else But Writing. I Wish I Were One Of Those People Who Wrote Songs Quickly. But I'm Not. So It Takes Me A Great Deal Of Time To Find Out What The Song Is.

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?

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

When Things Get Really Bad, Just Raise Your Glass And Stamp Your Feet And Do A Little Jig. That's About All You Can Do.

Follow Me, The Wise Man Said, But He Walked Behind.

You've Got A Deadline. Well, I Do, Too: Death.

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

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.

Well I Am The One Who Loves Changing From Nothing To One.

I Loved You In The Morning, Our Kisses Deep And Warm, Your Hair Upon The Pillow Like A Sleepy, Golden Storm, Yes Many Loved Before Us, I Know We Are Not New, In City And In Forest They Smiled Like Me And You, But Now It's Come To Distances And Both Of Us Must Try, Your Eyes Are Soft With Sorrow, Hey, That's No Way To Say Goodbye.

Your Body Will Never Be Familiar.

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.

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.

Love Is The Only Engine Of Survival

Get Ready For The Future: It Is Murder.

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.

..you Wanted To Be The Superman Who Was Never Clark Kent

Do Not Be A Magician - Be Magic!

It's Inappropriate For An Elderly Chap To Register, You Know, Authentically, His Feelings, You Know, Because They Really Can Be Interpreted. So You Have To Get Quite Covert As You Get Older. Or You Have To Find Some Avuncular Way, You Know, Of Responding.

Now, I Don't Want To Give You The Impression That I'm A Great Musicologist, But I'm A Lot Better Than What I Was Described As For A Long, Long Time; You Know, People Said I Only Knew Three Chords When I Knew Five.

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 Cannot Understand Why My Arm Is Not A Lilac Tree.

Just To Get Serious About This Thing, You Know. One Has To Be Compassionate. It's True That People Are Up Against Things, Economically And Emotionally.

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

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

I Do Cherish Those Moments When I Can Just Relax In The Hotel Room. Because There Are A Lot Of Details That Have To Be Taken Care Of Aside From Just Getting Up Onstage. You're Dealing With A Number Of Human Beings Whose Well-being And Safety You're Concerned About. There Are People I Like To Meet And Talk To In The Crew And The Band.

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

I Don't Have A Television Set Up [in The Mountains], Of Course, But I Find I Don't Miss It At All, Or The Newspaper. I've Sneaked A Radio Into By Cabin, But I Find I Turn It On Very Rarely.

I’ll Be Marching Through The Morning, Marching Through The Night, Moving 'cross The Borders Of My Secret Life.

Friend, When You Speak This Carefully I Know It Is Because You Don't Know What To Say.

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

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.

The Big Change Is The Proximity To Death.

Who Could Have Foretold The Heart Grows Old From Touching Others

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

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 .

Most Of Our Distractions Are Designed To Invite Us Away From This Recognition, Which Is A Good Idea.

The Maestro Says It's Mozart But It Sounds Like Bubble Gum When You're Waiting For The Miracle To Come.

We Do What Only Lovers Can: Make A Gift Out Of Necessity.

Like Any Dealer He Was Watching For The Card That Is So High And Wild He'll Never Need To Deal Another. He Was Just Some Joseph Looking For A Manger.

And Clenching Your Fist For The Ones Like Us Who Are Oppressed By The Figures Of Beauty.

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.

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

I Will Not Be Held Like A Drunkard / Under The Cold Tap Of Facts

No One's Ever Done One Of My Songs Badly. People Say To Me, "god, So-and-so Wrecked That Song." Well, I'm Unaware Of It. Anybody Doing One Of My Tunes Has Earned My Gratitude, And I Don't Get That Many Covers Where I Have The Luxury To Choose.

Fare Thee Well My Nightingale, I Lived But To Be Near You. Thow You Are Singing Somewhere Still I Can No Longer Hear You.

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

My Page Was Too White My Ink Was Too Thin The Day Wouldn't Write What The Night Pencilled In.

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.

Reality Is One Of The Possibilities I Cannot Afford To Ignore

We Used To Play Music For Fun. Much More Than Now. Now Nobody Picks Up A Guitar Unless They're Paid For It.

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'm Neither Left Or Right. I'm Just Staying Home Tonight, Getting Lost In That Hopeless Little Screen.

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.

I Bargain Now. I Offer Buttons For His Love.

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.

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

It Just Takes A Long Time For Me [to Write A Song]. I'm Very Slow. And It Comes, Kind Of, By Dribbles And Drops.

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

The Duty Of Lovers Is To Tarnish The Golden Rule

[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.

The Term Clinical Depression Finds Its Way Into Too Many Conversations These Days. One Has A Sense That A Catastrophe Has Occurred In The Psychic Landscape.

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