Leonard Cohen

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.

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.

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.

I had girlfriends who really irritated me by their devotion to the Beatles. I didn't begrudge them their interest, and there were songs like 'Hey Jude' that I could appreciate. But they didn't seem to be essential to the kind of nourishment that I craved.

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

Torah values are the ones that inform my life.

I like life on the road. It's a lot easier than civilian life. You kind of feel like you're in a motorcycle gang.

I read with some amusement my reputation as a ladies' man. My friends are amused by that, too, because they know my life.

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

I've never sold widely enough to be able to relax about money. I had two kids and their mother to support and my own life. So there was never an option of cutting out.

Music is the emotional life of most people.

Songs seem to take me a long time. I don't know why; they're not especially excellent for taking so long.