Leonard Cohen: The Romantic in a Ragpicker's Trade

"I THINK MARRIAGE is the hottest furnace of the spirit today," Leonard Cohen said on the phone from Mexico. "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. Naturally I feel ambiguous about it."