Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash.
Leonard Cohen

There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in.
Leonard Cohen

Act the way you'd like to be and soon you'll be the way you act.
Leonard Cohen

A woman watches her body uneasily, as though it were an unreliable ally in the battle for love.
Leonard Cohen

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.
Leonard Cohen

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.
Leonard Cohen

Children show scars like medals. Lovers use them as secrets to reveal. A scar is what happens when the word is made flesh.
Leonard Cohen