"The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world"
About this Quote
The subtext is Cohen’s signature blend of mysticism and self-accusation. He knows the pose he’s describing is seductive and pathetic at once. Superiority becomes a coping mechanism, a way to convert vulnerability into status. The “sleeping world” isn’t just people in beds; it’s the ordinary, unexamined life, the realm of routines and daylight explanations. The insomniac casts them as innocents or dupes, which conveniently makes loneliness feel like chosen solitude.
As a musician and poet who wrote endlessly about desire, faith, and the disciplines of pain, Cohen is also winking at the romantic mythology of the sleepless artist. Culture loves the image of the late-night seer, but Cohen punctures it: that superiority is “last,” the final flimsy consolation when everything else has failed. The sentence lands because it indicts without preaching. It lets you recognize yourself in the vanity, then asks whether your wakefulness is insight or just another story you tell to get through the night.
Quote Details
| Topic | Witty One-Liners |
|---|---|
| Source | Verified source: The Favourite Game (Leonard Cohen, 1963)
Evidence: The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world. (Exact page not verified from a viewable primary scan; commonly attributed to the novel text). The strongest evidence located points to Leonard Cohen's first novel, The Favourite Game, as the original source. Multiple secondary quote references explicitly cite the line to that book, and bibliographic records confirm the novel's first publication in 1963. Open Library and other bibliographic sources show the work was originally published in 1963; Wikipedia's bibliographic summary identifies the first edition publisher as Secker & Warburg in 1963, with U.S. publication following in 1964. I did not locate a directly viewable scan of the 1963 first edition page containing the sentence, so the exact page number could not be verified from the primary printing. Other candidates (2) Sleepless (Marie Darrieussecq, 2023) compilation95.0% ... The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world . " 11 So said Leonard Cohen , a... Names of People (Chapter 1) (Marcel Proust) primary60.0% Song: "Names of People (Chapter 1)" by Marcel Proust |
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Citation Formats
APA Style (7th ed.)
Cohen, Leonard. (2026, March 17). The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world. FixQuotes. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-last-refuge-of-the-insomniac-is-a-sense-of-161202/
Chicago Style
Cohen, Leonard. "The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world." FixQuotes. March 17, 2026. https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-last-refuge-of-the-insomniac-is-a-sense-of-161202/.
MLA Style (9th ed.)
"The last refuge of the insomniac is a sense of superiority to the sleeping world." FixQuotes, 17 Mar. 2026, https://fixquotes.com/quotes/the-last-refuge-of-the-insomniac-is-a-sense-of-161202/. Accessed 21 Mar. 2026.
