Be With Me In The Phases Of My Work Because My Brain Feels Like It Has Been Whipped And I Yearn To Make A Small Perfect Thing Which Will Live In Your Morning Like Curious Static Through A President's Elegy Or A Nude Hunchback Acquiring A Tan On The Crowded Oily Beach.
Interpretation
This quote expresses the yearning of an artist to create something beautiful amidst the chaos of creative struggles.
Leonard Cohen's quote reflects the intense emotional and mental struggles involved in the creative process. He invites others to join him in his artistic journey, sharing his desire to create a single perfect piece of work that can resonate with someone else's daily life, despite the chaotic and challenging aspects of that creativity. The imagery used illustrates the dichotomy of beauty and turmoil, encapsulating the artist's longing for connection through their art.
In practice
This quote would be perfect in a speech about the challenges of creativity and the importance of artistic collaboration.
What is most original in a man's nature is often that which is most desperate. Thus new systems are forced on the world by men who simply cannot bear the pain of living with what is. Creators care nothing for their systems except that they be unique. If Hitler had been born in Nazi Germany he wouldn't have been content to enjoy the atmosphere.
I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others; it's for others to use.
I heard of a man who says words so beautifully that if he only speaks their name women give themselves to him. If I am dumb beside your body while silence blossoms like tumors on our lips it is because I hear a man climb stairs and clear his throat outside our door.
I think what we like about music - and what we like about art in general....is that enterprise that stops our minds from spinning. Because we're always all over the place. A good song, a good lyric is a movie: it will just focus and calm and confer significance on this completely bewildering reality that all of us live in.
Most of the time one is discouraged by the work, but now and again by some grace something stands out and invites you to work on it, to elaborate it or animate it in some way. It's a mysterious process.
Ring the bells that still can ring.
The capacity to be puzzled is the premise of all creation, be it in art or in science.
Whatever I do with music, I try to make it align deeply with the values and principles of who I am and what I believe the purpose of my life is.
Things rust, you know, like the heart. My cardiologist said, 'It's a pump; use it - that's the sole advice I've got to give you.' It's the same in playwriting. Don't theorise about it. Do it.
...and the lamp having at last resigned itself to death. There was nothing now but firelight in the room, And every time a flame uttered a gasp for breath It flushed her amber skin with the blood of its bloom.
I think Mozart's operas 'The Marriage of Figaro' and 'Don Giovanni' are the two most perfect ever written. The music is magical.
As long as you have the acting chops and the desire to get inside a character, you can play anything.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.