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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.

-Leonard Cohen

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No One's Ever Done

Leonard Cohen

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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.

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

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

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

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

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

Do Not Be A Magician - Be Magic!

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.

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

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

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.

Someone Gave Me Wishes And I Wished For An Embrace.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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'm Planning A Catastrophe.

My Interest In This Pack Of Failures Betrays My Character.

In The Broken Places, The Light Shines Through.

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.

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

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 Mental Space Is Occupied And Everything Is Mine.

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.

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

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.

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 Won't Comment On What Bob Dylan Said, But I Will Comment On His Receiving The Nobel Prize, Which To Me Is Like Pinning A Medal On Mount Everest For Being The Highest Mountain.

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.

Every Heart To Love Will Come, But Like A Refugee

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 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

Poetry Is A Verdict Rather Than An Intention.

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

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.

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.

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

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'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'.

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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 .

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!

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Suffering, Violent Suffering, Seems To Be Something That Corresponds With Something That We Experience.

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

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.

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.

Music Is The Emotional Life Of The Most People.

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

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

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

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...

No One Masters The Heart.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

Even Damnation Is Poisoned With Rainbows.

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

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

I Looked Into [prozac]. I Must Say That It Is Certainly A Wonder Drug.

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.

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

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.

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

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

Thinking About You

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.

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.

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

Silence And A Deeper Silence When The Crickets Hesitate

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.

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

When You've Fallen On The Highway / And You're Lying In The Rain, / And They Ask You How You're Doing / Of Course You'll Say You Can't Complain.

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

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

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.

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

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.

Like A Bird On A Wire, Like A Drunk In A Midnight Choir, I Have Tried In My Way To Be Free!!

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.

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

Wounds And Scars

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

Never Make A Decision When You Need To Pee.

The Cutting Of The Gem Has To Be Finished Before You Can See Whether It Shines.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Western Culture

Ring The Bells That Still Can Ring.

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

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

In Our Rags Of Light, All Dressed To Kill.

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

Reality Is One Of The Possibilities I Cannot Afford To Ignore

Ordinary Eternal Machinery, Like The Grinding Of The Stars

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.

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.

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

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

We're 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?

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.

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.

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

Deprivation Is The Mother Of Poetry.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

Religious Person

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 Don't Even Hate Books Anymore.

I've Forgotten Most Of What I've Read And, Frankly, It Never Seemed Very Important To Me Or To The World.

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

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.

I Couldn't Feel So I Learned To Touch.

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

Who Could Have Foretold The Heart Grows Old From Touching Others

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

I Try To Make Those References. I Try To Make Sure That They're Not Too Obscure. But Outside Of That, I Dare Not Claim Anything In The Spiritual Realm For My Own.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

The Duty Of Lovers Is To Tarnish The Golden Rule

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

Love Is The Only Engine Of Survival

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

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 Don't Have Any Spiritual Strategy.

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 .

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

I Have Tried In My Way To Be Free.

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

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