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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.

-Leonard Cohen

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We've Got To Temper

Leonard Cohen

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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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

Well, You Know, There's Depression And Depression. What I Mean By Depression In My Own Case Is That Depression Isn't Just The Blues. It's Not Just Like I Have A Hangover In The Weekend ... The Girl Didn't Show Up Or Something Like That. It Isn't That. It's Not Really Depression, It's A Kind Of Mental Violence Which Stops You From Functioning Properly From One Moment To The Next. You Lose Something Somewhere And Suddenly You're Gripped By A Kind Of Angst Of The Heart And Of The Spirit.

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

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

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?

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.

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

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

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.

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

Gift You Tell Me That Silence Is Nearer To Peace Than Poems But If For My Gift I Brought You Silence (for I Know Silence) You Would Say This Is Not Silence This Is Another Poem And You Would Hand It Back To Me

The Birds They Sangat The Break Of Day.start Again!!i Heard Them Say

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Religious Person

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

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 Duty Of Lovers Is To Tarnish The Golden Rule

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.

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

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

He Can Love The Shape Of Human Beings, The Fine And Twisted Shapes Of The Heart. It Is Good To Have Among Us Such Men, Such Balancing Monsters Of Love.

Reality Is One Of The Possibilities I Cannot Afford To Ignore

I Don't Have Any Spiritual Strategy.

Music Is The Emotional Life Of The Most People.

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'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

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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Every Heart To Love Will Come, But Like A Refugee

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.

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

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

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

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've Often Said If I Knew Where The Good Songs Came From, I'd Go There More Often.

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

Ah, Grief Makes Us Precise!

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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I Don't Even Hate Books Anymore.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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 .

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.

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 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.

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

Someone Gave Me Wishes And I Wished For An Embrace.

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

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

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

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

Who Could Have Foretold The Heart Grows Old From Touching Others

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

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

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

Even Damnation Is Poisoned With Rainbows.

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

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.

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

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

I 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.

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.

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

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 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.

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.

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

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

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

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!

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.

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.

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.

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

I Have Tried In My Way To Be Free.

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 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.

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

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.

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 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.

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.

My Interest In This Pack Of Failures Betrays My Character.

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...

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

Poetry Is A Verdict Rather Than An Intention.

As I Grew Older, I Understood That Instructions Came With This Voice. What Were These Instructions? The Instructions Were Never To Lament Casually. And If One Is To Express The Great Inevitable Defeat That Awaits Us All, It Must Be Done Within The Strict Confines Of Dignity And Beauty.

[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.

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

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

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.

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.

No One Masters The Heart.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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 .

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

I 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.

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

Silence And A Deeper Silence When The Crickets Hesitate

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.

Well, For One Thing, In The Tradition Of Zen That I've Practiced, There Is No Prayerful Worship And There Is No Affirmation Of A Deity.

We Are Ugly But We Have The Music.

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.

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.

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.

Ring The Bells That Still Can Ring.

Everybody Knows The Dice Are Loaded.

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 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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

It's 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.

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.

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.

Never Make A Decision When You Need To Pee.

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

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

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

Ordinary Eternal Machinery, Like The Grinding Of The Stars

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.

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

Thinking About You

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.

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

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

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