Quotes by Jean Cocteau
Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly.
The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.
Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.
Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
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.
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.
It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
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.
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 poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.
An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.
I am a lie who always speaks the truth.
Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Vistor Hugo.
A little too much is just enough.
The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
The Louver is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.
Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images.
Nothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and round and gets nowhere. The moment is the only thing that counts.
I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
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, they finish by loading honors on your head.
Art is science made clear.
