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" I always felt I was scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to get a song together. "
Leonard Cohen
Trying
Song
Together
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" 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. "
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" I never had the sense that there was an end: that there was a retirement or that there was a jackpot. "
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" There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in. "
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Crack
Everything
" All of my writing has guitars behind it, even the novels. "
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" One of the reasons I'm on tour is to meet people. I consider it a reconnaissance. You know, I consider myself like in a military operation. I don't feel like a citizen. "
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" Poetry is just the evidence of life. If your life is burning well, poetry is just the ash. "
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" I never really liked poetry readings; I liked to read poetry by myself, but I liked singing, chanting my lyrics to this jazz group. "
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Group
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" 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? "
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World
Value
Work
" We used to play music for fun. Much more than now. Now nobody picks up a guitar unless they're paid for it. "
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Nobody
Music
Guitar
" Prayer is translation. A man translates himself into a child asking for all there is in a language he has barely mastered. "
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Prayer
He
Language
" I am an old scholar, better-looking now than when I was young. That's what sitting on your ass does to your face. "
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Face
Old
Young
" The fact that my songs take a long time to write is no guarantee of their excellence. "
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Fact
Long
Long Time
" 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. "
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Activity
Only
Work
" My mind was always very cluttered, so I took great pains to simplify my environment, because if my environment were half as cluttered as my mind, I wouldn't be able to make it from room to room. "
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Environment
Mind
Always
" If I knew where the good songs came from, I'd go there more often. "
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Knew
More
Songs
" I didn't want to write for pay. I wanted to be paid for what I write. "
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Pay
I Write
Write
" 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. "
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Kind
Me
Devotion
" 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. "
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Joy
Sadness
People
" I continually blacken pages and scribble away, so I always have a number of songs that are half-finished. "
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Away
Always
Number
" I always considered myself a minor writer. My province is small, and I try to explore it very, very thoroughly. "
Leonard Cohen
Always
Myself
Small
" There are writers who are great visionaries, who can depict huge movements - things like that. They're the great writers. I'm just the other kind. "
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Things
Other
Like
" When you stop thinking about yourself all the time, a certain sense of repose overtakes you. "
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Thinking
Yourself
You
" And I had not much of a voice. I didn't play that great guitar either. "
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Voice
Guitar
Much
" There's always a group of songs that I'm working at. Some of them are 10 years old, and some of them are just a few weeks old. I'm always trying to adjust these songs to some position where I can bring them to completion. "
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Group
Working
Trying
" In dreams the truth is learned that all good works are done in the absence of a caress. "
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Truth Is
Done
Truth
" I've got beautiful reviews for all my books, and I'm very well thought of in the tiny circles that know me, but I'm really starving. "
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" 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. "
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Rest
Trying
" I was 15 when I first became deeply touched by the rhythm and structure of words. "
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Structure
Touched
Rhythm
" I never had huge amounts of money when I was young. I had huge amounts of fame, and I always had the sense of labor and recompense. I always said I don't want to work for pay, but I want to get paid for my song. "
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Young
Fame
Money
" I had a very messianic childhood. "
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Childhood
Had
Very