If you were to ask me what so inspires me about Leonard Cohen? I would say that he wrote so

lucidly about mystery. In other words, a six-year-old child could understand it, and yet it's about

everything that we can't begin to fathom. This is death, sex, and money.

The show from WNYC about the things we think about a lot

and need to talk about more.

I'm in a sale.

When I reached writer Pico Ayer at his home in Japan, it was late afternoon where I was,

and early morning the next day for Pico.

If you were going to turn on a Leonard Cohen song this morning to listen to, what song would you pick?

Well, I've already answered that, Anna, because I did so with If It Be Your Will. And that's almost the prayer that I begin every important conversation with,

takes me to the deepest and quietest part of myself.

If it be your will, let I speak no more, and my voice, and my voice be still as it was before.

Almost every single word, a monosyllable, and yet it gets to a place that we can't begin to explain.

Leonard Cohen died in 2016, but he's with Pico, most mornings.

Pico was a longtime fan of the singer-songwriter, and then the two became close friends

in the last 20 years of Cohen's life.

Pico Iyer has written more than a dozen books about travel, stillness, and spirituality.

His latest, The Half-Kknown Life, is a chronicle of his visits to holy sites and sacred places.

And we started our conversation, talking about when he first met Leonard Cohen at one sacred place,

at a monastery outside of Los Angeles, where Cohen eventually stayed for five years, after decades of living like a rock star.

Pico had been assigned a magazine story about that transition.

And I will never forget driving up into the cold, high, dark mountains behind Los Angeles,

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