Cohen: "I don't have any sense or urgency about any of my writing, actually. I don't think mankind will be damaged if I don't put out a new album or a new book."

Cohen: "I've always been into self-dramatization. I intend to live forever."

Cohen: "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."

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."

Cohen: "As I approach the end of my life, I have even less and less interest in examining what have got to be very superficial evaluations or opinions about the significance of one's life or one's work. I was never given to it when I was healthy, and I am less given to it now."

Cohen: "When you stop thinking about yourself all the time, a certain sense of repose overtakes you."

Cohen: "There are some people who come to me for some illumination on their problems. I guess they feel I'm writing about some of the things they themselves are going through. But I don't usually have much help to give - there isn't much you can say to someone in the midst of their own crises."

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

Cohen: "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."

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

Cohen: "This world is full of conflicts and full of things that cannot be reconciled. But there are moments when we can... reconcile and embrace the whole mess, and that's what I mean by 'Hallelujah.'"

Cohen: "The older I get, the surer I am that I'm not running the show."

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."

Cohen: "In dreams the truth is learned that all good works are done in the absence of a caress."

Cohen: "At a certain point, if you still have your marbles and are not faced with serious financial challenges, you have a chance to put your house in order. It's a cliche, but it's underestimated as an analgesic on all levels. Putting your house in order, if you can do it, is one of the most comforting activities, and the benefits of it are incalculable."

Cohen: "I had a very messianic childhood."