Oh, maybe Leonard Cohen. Leonard Cohen is my hero. He’s…

““Oh, maybe Leonard Cohen. Leonard Cohen is my hero. He’s like Zorba the Buddha. Bhagwan Shree Rajneesh, the Indian guru who I think was murdered by American government and who later changed his name to Osho, he had this notion of a character called Zorba the Buddha who — we’ll say a man, but it could be a woman too — who was contemplative, led a serene spiritual life, meditated a lot, was a nonviolent, placid person who lived in the spirit but who also knew how to work and make money, knew how to utilize the Internet, knew how much to tip a maître d’ in a Paris nightclub, who was of the world and enjoyed the world and all of its sensual pleasures in terms of food, sex, drink, color, art, but also at the same time was deeply spiritual. And I’ve kind of superimposed that Zorba the Buddha figure onto Leonard Cohen, perhaps unfairly, but he strikes me as someone who is close to that figure. I like the fact that he meditates, that he has spent time alone — a lot of it in anguish in a Buddhist monastery — that he is so adept with language and loves women and wears beautiful Armani suits and will sit and sip wine at a sidewalk café with beautiful girls and yet be able to have this rich inner life, not just creatively but also spiritually.””

— Mara Altman