- Self, also narrator and interviewer: It was the 60s, in the time of free love and open marriage, including Leonard and Marianne's. I was a rather lost 20 year old visiting the island of Hydra when Marianne befriended me. For a short while, I became one of her lovers. She encouraged me to follow my dreams and she played me Leonard's songs under the Greek moon and stars. Her smile and enthusiasm were one of a kind and I fell completely intoxicated by the beauty of their relationship.
- Self - 'Married' to Irving Layton for 20 Years: Poets do not make great husbands. Do they? Do you know a poet whose ever made an absolutely splendid husband? Or, a filmmaker? Or, an artist? No. You can't own them. You can't even own a bit of them. They're just allusive creatures - who are married to their muse. That sounds so pretentious to say that, but it's true. But, the irony is a man like that - is a man that every woman wants to have - and can't have.
- Self - Childhood Friend: He loved women. No question about it. But, he needed to be his own person, in his own way. So, he could love women from a distance and love them when they came through and make them - he could make women feel good about themselves. And that's how we love him. That's how we loved him. But, he couldn't give himself to them. Because, he couldn't give himself away.
- Self - Writer and Poet: Leonard had always used acid. It just gave that extra *whoosh*. It was never just like taking it to get out of one's self. It was very much to do with his part of the spiritual search. It allowed him to go into his madness, I think. As he probably couldn't have done anywhere else. It allowed him to sit in his terrace, in the sun, and take acid - and speed. Marianne, I mean, she used to say, you know, I mean, she was there to sort to not pick up the pieces but to sort of hold the man that had driven himself to the "Beautiful Losers" and writing those extraordinary pages, day after day, in the sun. Lunatic, that he was.
- Judy Collins: Leonard found me - and he came to my apartment. And he came in and we had some coffee. I said, "So?" And he said, "Well, I can't sing - and I can't play the guitar - and I don't know if this is a song." And then he played me
- [singing]
- Judy Collins: Suzanne takes you down to her place by the river.
- [talking]
- Judy Collins: So, I said, "Leonard, that is a song! That's a song and I have to record that immediately."
- Self - 'Married' to Irving Layton for 20 Years: Irving went to bed with everybody. Why not Leonard's mother, I mean? And she - she was very attracted to Irving. She was very beautiful. But, *mad*. I think - really great writers have to have *mad*, Oedipally mad mothers.
- Julie Felix: Leonard was always searching - and this feeling of never belonging anywhere - and even in a relationship, you know, eventually. With Marianne, I think, that was the longest relationship, after that he went from relationship to relationship.
- Self - Guitarist: I think Leonard's quest in life overrode the normal, you know, settling down and havin' a home and a family and all that stuff. Leonard always had that feelin' that he was after somethin' that he couldn't get his hands around. The only thing about is is that I don't know what he - I don't think he knew what he was chasin', you know. I don't think he really *knew* - and that made it probably darker, you know. He lived in darkness.
- Self - Produced 9 of Leonard's Albums: When we toured Europe, when we toured Germany, I've never seen so many blondes in one audience. He was the poet for the quasi-depressed women of his era. People who were going through issues, they'd come up sobbing, "You saved my life. I was in such a dark place. And your darkness led me out of it."
- Self - Friend of Marianne: It was a love story which had 50 chapters without being together. She had a compartment of her heart which was always married to Leonard. That's the beauty of Marianne's and Leonard's history - that they had this place for each other till the very end - and its not the bitter end. It was a lovely end. It's a very beautiful end.
- Leonard Cohen: Greece is a good place to look at the moon, isn't it? You can read by moonlight, You can read on the terrace, You can see a face as you saw it when you were young, It was good light then, Oil lamps and candles, And those little flames that floated on a cork in olive oil, What I loved in my old life, I haven't forgotten, It lives in my spine, Marianne and the child, The days of kindness, It rises in my spine and it manifest as tears, I pray that a loving memory exists for them too, The precious ones I overthrew, For an education in the world