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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.

-Leonard Cohen

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Most Of The Time

Leonard Cohen

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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.

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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.

Ah, Grief Makes Us Precise!

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Let Judges Secretly Despair Of Justice: Their Verdicts Will Be More Acute. Let Generals Secretly Despair Of Triumph; Killing Will Be Defamed. Let Priests Secretly Despair Of Faith: Their Compassion Will Be True.

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

Nothing Can Stop You From Thinking. The Human Mind Is Designed To Think Continually.

In Our Rags Of Light, All Dressed To Kill.

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

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.

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.

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

Bottom Of The Barrel

Show Me Slowly What I Only Know The Limits Of Dance Me To The End Of Love

You Go Your Way I'll Go Your Way Too

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.

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.

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.

I Am Running Through A Snowfall Which Is Her Thighs, He Dramatized In Purple. Her Thighs Are Filling Up The Street. Wide As A Snowfall, Heavy As Huge Falling Zeppelins, Her Damp Thighs Are Settling On The Sharp Roofs And Wooden Balconies. Weather-vanes Press The Shape Of Roosters And Sail-boats Into The Skin. The Faces Of Famous Statues Are Preserved Like Intaglios.

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

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

I Want To Be Paid For My Work, Not Work For My Pay.

In My Secret Life" "i Saw You This Morning, You Were Moving So Fast. Can't Seem To Loosen My Grip On The Past. And I Miss You So Much, There's No One In Sight. And We're Still Making Love In My Secret Life. I Smile When I Am Angry, I Cheat And I Lie, I Do What I Have To Do To Get By, In My Secret Life.

First We Take Manhattan, Then We Take Berlin

[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.

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.

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

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

Seriousness Is Not Calvinistic, It's Not A Renunciation, It's The Very Opposite Of That.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 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

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.

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

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

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.

Love Is The Only Engine Of Survival

I Alwaysthought Of Myself As A Competent, Minor Poet. I Know Who I'm Up Against.

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

Your Hair Upon The Pillow Like A Sleepy Golden Storm

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.

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.

Some People Are Graced With A Flow; Some People Are Graced With Something Less Than A Flow. I'm One Of Those.

Someone Gave Me Wishes And I Wished For An Embrace.

I Almost Went To Bed Without Remembering The Four White Violets I Put In The Button-hole Of Your Green Sweater And How I Kissed You Then And You Kissed Me Shy As Though I’d Never Been Your Lover

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

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

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

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

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

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'.

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.

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

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

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

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

Poetry Is A Verdict Rather Than An Intention.

The Winter Has Not Killed Usagain!

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

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

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

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

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.

Every Heart To Love Will Come, But Like A Refugee

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.

Music Is The Emotional Life Of The Most People.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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

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've Never Thought Of Myself As A Religious Person.

Religious Person

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

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

There's No Forsaking What You Love No Existential Leap As Witnessed Here In Time And Blood A Thousand Kisses Deep

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

Women Stand For The Objective World For A Man. They Stand For The Thing That You're Not And That's What You Always Reach For In A Song.

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.

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

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 Fought Against The Bottle, But I Had To Do It Drunk. Took My Diamond To The Pawn Shop, But That Don't Make It Junk.

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.

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

I Found That Things Became A Lot Easier When I No Longer Expected To Win. You Abandon Your Masterpiece And Sink Into The Real Masterpiece.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

You Should Go From Place To Place Recovering The Poems That Have Been Written For You To Which You Can Affix Your Signature. Don't Discuss These Matters With Anyone. Retrieve. Retrieve. When The Basket Is Full Someone Will Appear To Whom You Can Present It.

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

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.

I Bargain Now. I Offer Buttons For His Love.

Games Are Nature's Most Beautiful Creation

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

The Big Change Is The Proximity To Death.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Rust Rust Rust In The Engines Of Love And Time.

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.

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.

Even Damnation Is Poisoned With Rainbows.

Deprivation Is The Mother Of Poetry.

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

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

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.

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 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.

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

[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.

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

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.

English, I Know You ... You Are German With A License To Kill.

Maybe There's A God Above, As For Me, All I've Ever Seemed To Learn From Love Is How To Shoot At Someone Who Outdrew You. Yeah But It's Not A Complaint That You Hear Tonight, It's Not The Laughter Of Someone Who Claims To Have Seen The Light No It's A Cold And It's A Very Lonely Hallelujah.

Although Only One Man May Be Receiving The Favors Of A Woman, All Men In Her Presence Are Warmed.

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

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.

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

There's A Deep Tribal Aspect To My Own Nature. So When I'm In Contact With Those Deep Resources, Of Course I Feel A Very Special Kind Of Nourishment.

She Was Made Of Flesh And Eyelashes.

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.

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.

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.

Except For A Couple Of Hours In The Morning Which I Passed In The Company Of A Sage I Stayed In Bed Without Food Only A Few Mouthfuls Of Water “you Are A Fine Looking Old Man” I Said To Myself In The Mirror “and What Is More You Have The Correct Attitude You Don’t Care If It Ends Or If It Goes On And As For The Women And The Music There Will Be Plenty Of That In Paradise” Then I Went To The Mosque Of Memory To Express My Gratitude

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 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.

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

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?

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

There's Always A Nice Tune [on Radio] - Helps You Get The Dishes Done . I Like To Get The News From Time To Time - Not Too Often. I Don't Feel Deprived.

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.

And I Had Not Much Of A Voice. I Didn't Play That Great Guitar Either.

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

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

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

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

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

Singer-songwriters

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

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

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.

Pay Attention To The Cracks, Because That's Where The Light Gets In.

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

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Benjamin Disraeli

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