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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.

-Leonard Cohen

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It Is Painful To

Leonard Cohen

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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.

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Never Make A Decision When You Need To Pee.

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

If Your Life Is A Leaf That The Seasons Tear Off And Condemn They Will Bind You With Love That Is Graceful And Green As A Stem.

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.

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

It's Hard To Be Serious About So Many Things. [look At The Whole Emphasis] On The Charts, If You're A Songwriter.

It Doesn't Matter How Anything Happens.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

I Dreamed About You Baby. It Was Just The Other Night. Most Of You Was Naked Ah, But Some Of You Was Light.

You Can Keep The Body As Well-oiled And Receptive As Possible, But Whether You're Actually Going To Be Able To Go For The Long Haul Is Really Not Your Own Choice.

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.

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

How Can I Begin Anything New With All Of Yesterday In Me?

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.

All Men Will Be Sailors Then Until The Sea Shall Free Them

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

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.

There Are A Few Things That Deal With Passion. There's Prozac.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

... 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

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.

Love Is Not A Victory March

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.

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.

Don't Dwell On What Has Passed Away Or What Is Yet To Be.

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.

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

I Always Thought That Poetry Is The Verdict That Others Give To A Certain Kind Of Writing. So To Call Yourself A Poet Is A Kind Of Dangerous Description. It's For Others; It's For Others To Use.

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.

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

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

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!

It's Coming To America First, The Cradle Of The Best And Of The Worst. It's Here They Got The Range And The Machinery For Change And It's Here They Got The Spiritual Thirst. It's Here The Family's Broken And It's Here The Lonely Say That The Heart Has Got To Open In A Fundamental Way: Democracy Is Coming To The U.s.a. O Mighty Ship Of State! To The Shores Of Need Past The Reefs Of Greed Through The Squalls Of Hate Sail On, Sail On.

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

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.

Do Not Believe The Truth. The Truth Is Tiny Compared To What You Have To Do.

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.

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.

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.

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 Feel That This Is A Vocabulary That I Grew Up With. This Biblical Landscape Is Very Familiar To Me, And It's Natural That I Use Those Landmarks As References. Once They Were Universal References And Everybody Understood And Knew Them And Located Them. That's No Longer The Case Today, But It Is Still My Landscape.

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.

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.

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

Games Are Nature's Most Beautiful Creation

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

Your Hair Upon The Pillow Like A Sleepy Golden Storm

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.

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

I'm Planning A Catastrophe.

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

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 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.

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

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

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

Wounds And Scars

[europe Has] This Tradition Of Self Revelation In Popular Music. We Have It Here - It's Called Country Western Music... I Think That's Where The Deeper And More Complex Subjects Are Treated.

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 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.

All The Lousy Little Poets Coming Around Trying To Sound Like Charles Manson.

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

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.

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

I Cannot Understand Why My Arm Is Not A Lilac Tree.

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.

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

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

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.

You Have Money, Fame, Youth, Beauty, Talent. That's A Good Start... For Feeling Good.

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.

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.

The Blizzard Of The World Has Crossed The Threshold And It's Overturned The Order Of The Soul.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

When We Are Touched By A Song, It Is Because The Artist Cannot Hide Himself.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

One Is Given To Self-dramatization From Time To Time. I Intend To Live Forever.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Every Heart To Love Will Come, But Like A Refugee

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.

I'm Not A Very Nostalgic Person. I Don't Really Look At The Past And Summon Up Regrets, Or Self-congratulations, It Just Is Not A Mechanism That Operates Very Strongly In Me. So I Neither Have Regrets Nor Occasions For Self-congratulations.

Congratulations

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.

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.

What Is Most Original In A Man's Nature Is Often That Which Is Most Desperate. Thus New Systems Are Forced On The World By Men Who Simply Cannot Bear The Pain Of Living With What Is. Creators Care Nothing For Their Systems Except That They Be Unique. If Hitler Had Been Born In Nazi Germany He Wouldn't Have Been Content To Enjoy The Atmosphere.

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.

Reality Is One Of The Possibilities I Cannot Afford To Ignore

Ah, Grief Makes Us Precise!

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

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

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

Bottom Of The Barrel

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.

Don't Call Yourself A Secret Unless You Mean To Keep It.

Suzanne Had A Room On A Waterfront Street In The Port Of Montreal. Everything Happened Just As It Was Put Down. She Was The Wife Of A Man I Knew. Her Hospitality Was Immaculate. Some Months Later I Sang It For Judy Collins Over The Telephone. The Publishing Rights Were Lost In New York City, But It Is Probably Appropriate That I Don't Own This Song. Just The Other Day I Heard Some People Singing It On A Ship In The Caspian Sea.

This Mental Space Is Occupied And Everything Is Mine.

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

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.

The Winter Has Not Killed Usagain!

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.

I Had The Title Poet, And Maybe I Was One For A While. Also, The Title Singer Was Kindly Accorded Me, Even Though I Could Barely Carry A Tune.

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.

If You Want A Lover I'll Do Anything You Ask Me To. And If You Want Another Kind Of Love I'll Wear A Mask For You.

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

To Every People The Land Is Given On Condition. Perceived Or Not, There Is A Covenant, Beyond The Constitution, Beyond Sovereign Guarantee, Beyond The Nation's Sweetest Dreams Of Itself.

She Was Made Of Flesh And Eyelashes.

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

Do Not Be A Magician - Be Magic!

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

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

There Are Always Meaningful Songs For Somebody. People Are Doing Their Courting, People Are Finding Their Wives, People Are Making Babies, People Are Washing Their Dishes, People Are Getting Through The Day, With Songs That We May Find Insignificant. But Their Significance Is Affirmed By Others. There’s Always Someone Affirming The Significance Of A Song By Taking A Woman Into His Arms Or By Getting Through The Night. That’s What Dignifies The Song. Songs Don’t Dignify Human Activity. Human Activity Dignifies The Song.

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."

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.

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.

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

I Noticed That When I Was On Prozac My Relationship With The Landscape Improved. I Actually Stopped Thinking About Myself For A Minute Or Two, Because Most Of The Thoughts One Has About Oneself Are Involved With Desire Or Loneliness Or Isolation Or Strategies To Overcome Them.

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

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.

Rust Rust Rust In The Engines Of Love And Time.

Children Show Scars Like Medals. Lovers Use Them As Secrets To Reveal. A Scar Is What Happens When The Word Is Made Flesh.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

Ring The Bells That Still Can Ring.

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

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

Singer-songwriters

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.

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.

I Feel That, You Know, The Enormous Luck I've Had In Being Able To Make A Living, And To Never Have Had To Have Written One Word That I Didn't Want To Write, To Be Able To Have Satisfied That Dictum I Set For Myself, Which Was Not To Work For Pay, But To Be Paid For My Work - Just To Be Able To Satisfy Those Standards That I Set For Myself Has Been An Enormous Privilege.

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

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.

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

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.

No One Masters The Heart.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

I Don't Remember Lighting This Cigarette And I Don't Remember If I'm Here Alone Or Waiting For Someone.

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.

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'.

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

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 .

Dear Hitler Take Away The Torches I'm Not Guilty I Had To Have This

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

You Live Your Life As If It's Real.......a Thousand Kisses Deep

And Most People Have A Woman In Their Heart, Most Men Have A Woman In Their Heart And Most Women Have A Man In Their Heart.

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.

First We Take Manhattan, Then We Take Berlin

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.

The Moon Is Swimming Naked And The Summer Night Is Fragrant With A Mighty Expectation Of Relief.

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Louis D. Brandeis

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