Anybody know the source of this quote: "I feel at home when I'm in Montreal—in a way that I don't feel anywhere else"

[will1howell]

Full quote: "I feel at home when I'm in Montreal—in a way that I don't feel anywhere else. I don't know what it is, but the feeling gets stronger as I get older."

This quote appeared in a story in the New York Times about Leonard Cohen, published in February 2017, titled "Exploring the Montreal That Leonard Cohen Loved": https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/trav ... anada.html

The author of the piece describes the quote as something Cohen supposedly "told an interviewer in 2006." Since this time, the quote has been recycled and republished in dozens of stories, all of which set it up in the same vague way: "As Leonard Cohen told an interviewer in 2006," with no mention of who the interviewer was; indicating that nobody knows the original source, they're just quoting the NYT piece.

I've been going through Cohen's interviews in 2006 and I can't find any record of him saying this. Certainly over the years he expressed his affection for Montreal many times, but this exact quote remains elusive. Closest I can find is from a profile in CARP magazine in June 2006, in which Cohen said of Montreal: "I just love it. How can you explain love?"

Does anybody have a source for this quote?

[cybele]

Hello! I'm looking desperately for this quotation (thanks for the help thus far, Will!)

I've found it in books in French - but I think it might be a direct translation rather than a source.

Here's the French: « Je me sens chez moi quand je suis à Montréal, d’une façon que je ne ressens nulle part ailleurs. Je ne sais pas de quoi il s’agit, mais c’est un sentiment qui est de plus en plus fort avec les années. »

Any help would be much appreciated!