The singer/songwriter Leonard Cohen (a Jew who seemed to have an interest in the person of Jesus Christ) once called marriage "the hottest furnace of the spirit today." Cohen went on to say, "[Marriage is] much more difficult than solitude, much more challenging for people who want to work on themselves. It's a situation in which there are no alibis, excruciating most of the time … but it's only in this situation that any kind of work can be done."