Words matter. These are the best Jean Cocteau Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
The ear disapproves but tolerates certain musical pieces; transfer them into the domain of our nose, and we will be forced to flee.
The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.
Poetry is indispensable – if I only knew what for.
The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one’s preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizarre which seems inherent in them.
In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator.
Commissions suit me. They set limits. Jean Marais dared me to write play in which he would not speak in the first act, would weep for joy in the second and in the last would fall backward down a flight of stairs.
You’ve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
The poet doesn’t invent. He listens.
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
I am a lie who always speaks the truth.
I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.
The extreme limit of wisdom, that’s what the public calls madness.
I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?
Poetry is indispensable – if I only knew what for.
Life is a horizontal fall.
There are too many souls of wood not to love those wooden characters who do indeed have a soul.
The poet doesn’t invent. He listens.
True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.
The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.
Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.
The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one’s preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizarre which seems inherent in them.
The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.
When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.
Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.
Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.
A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.
Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.
Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet’s job. The rest is literature.
True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.
The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?
Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
Poets don’t draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.
Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.
The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the finish by loading honors on your head.
The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.
If a hermit lives in a state of ecstasy, his lack of comfort becomes the height of comfort. He must relinquish it.
The Louvre is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.
There are too many souls of wood not to love those wooden characters who do indeed have a soul.
I am a lie who always speaks the truth.
What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort.
One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends.
