Leonard Cohen's Most Fascinating Quotes
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You know the words to "Suzanne" and "Hallelujah," but did you know that Leonard Cohen was often as poetic in interviews as he was with his music?
You know the words to "Suzanne" and "Hallelujah," but did you know that Leonard Cohen was often as poetic in interviews as he was with his music? The legend's best conversations were collected into one illuminating book, Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen. Editor Jeff Burger has selected interviews and quotes that will prove as fascinating to Cohen newcomers to his most diehard fans.
Burger has culled 12 of the book's revealing quotes from across Cohen's career; they're listed in chronological order below.
Related: Holy Moly, What a Great Song! Leonard Cohen's 'Hallelujah' Lyrics, History, Cover Versions and More
Best Leonard Cohen Quotes
Leonard Cohen Quote on Marriage
“I think marriage is the hottest furnace of the spirit today. Much more difficult than solitude, much more challenging for people who want to work on themselves. It’s a situation in which there are no alibis, excruciating most of the time ... but it’s only in this situation that any kind of work can be done.”
—to Paul Williams, 1975
Leonard Cohen Quote on His Simple Lifestyle
“I have always been attracted to the voluptuousness of austerity. I never chose the style of my life because it hurt. It was on the contrary. I feel most comfortable and most abundant when things are very simple and I know where everything is and there’s nothing around that I don’t need.”
—to Vicki Gabereau, 1984
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Leonard Cohen Quote on Stage Fright
“When you walk on the stage and five thousand people have paid good money to hear you, there’s definitely a sense that you can blow it. The possibilities for disgrace are enormous.”
—to Robert Sward, 1984
Leonard Cohen Quote on Popular Music
“The basic function of popular music is to create an environment for courting, lovemaking, and doing the dishes. It’s useful because it addresses the heart in the midst of all these activities, and it will always be useful in this very important way.”
—to Kristine McKenna, 1985
Related: The Most Influential Pop Songs of All Time
Leonard Cohen Quote On Career Longevity
“God willing I would like to keep on going. I listened to [blues singer] Alberta Hunter in New York a few years ago. She was eighty-two at the time and it was really wonderful to hear the experience in this woman’s voice. You knew that she knew what she was talking about and when she said ‘God bless you’ at the end of her set, you really did feel blessed.”
—to Ray Martin, 1985
Leonard Cohen Quote to Making a Living as a Musician
“In hindsight, it seems like the height of folly—I’ll take care of my financial problems by becoming a singer. But I got ambushed in New York by the so-called folksong renaissance that was going on there. It did take care of the financial problem, actually.”
—to Tom Schnabel, 1988
Simone Joyner/Redferns via Getty Images
Leonard Cohen Quote on Covers of His Songs
“I’ve never gotten over the pleasure of someone covering one of my songs. My career has really been quite modest in the world and not many people have done so. Somehow my critical faculties go into a state of suspended animation when I hear someone’s covered one of my tunes. I’m not there to judge it, just to say thank you.”
—to Deborah Sprague, 1991
Leonard Cohen Quote on Connecting to Others
“We seem to be able to relate to detail…It’s better to say ‘watching Captain Kangaroo.’ Not ‘watching TV.’ Sitting in my room ‘with that hopeless little screen.’ Not just ‘TV,’ but ‘the hopeless, little screen.’ I think those are the details that delight us. They delight us because we can share a life then.”
—to Paul Zollo, 1992
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Leonard Cohen Quote on Having Kids
“I never wanted [children], to tell you the truth, at the beginning. For a long time, I felt I’d been maneuvered into it…But I’m sure glad I had them because they are about the best company I have in my life.”
—to David Fanning, 1993
Leonard Cohen Quote on Playing His Songs at Weddings and Funerals
“Someone will say that they played my song ‘If It Be Your Will’ at their friend’s funeral. Or they played ‘Dance Me to the End of Love’ at their wedding or ‘Hallelujah’ got them through the night . . . I see that they [the songs] moved into the world and were able to be useful and helpful and it makes me feel good because it’s important that you feel useful.”
—to Stina Lundberg Dabrowski, 1997
Related: The Best Wedding Songs
Leonard Cohen Quote on Revisiting His Old Songs
“I hardly ever get a chance to hear my old songs. Sometimes I hear one on some generous retrospective radio station when I’m in town but I don’t feel like that person anymore. I stand in awe. People say the very early songs were the most important. I listen to them like I’m listening to someone else. I have a lot of respect for the young heart who produced those visions.”
—to Nigel Williamson, 1997
Leonard Cohen on What Makes Good Lyrics
“It's just how they resonate [that makes a lyric good]. You know they resonate with a truth that is hard to locate but which is operating with some force in your life. I often feel that about a Dylan song or a song even with Edith Piaf…the words are going too fast for me to really understand them in French but you feel that they are talking about something that is true, that you can’t locate by yourself and someone has located it for you and you just feel like you’ve put in the last piece in the jigsaw puzzle for that moment. That a moment has been clarified. The moment that you’re in at the moment that you’re listening to it. Yeah, the pieces fit…Isn’t that wonderful when all the pieces fit?”
—to Lina Lunson, 2005
