Jean Cocteau Quotes

The poet doesn't invent. He listens.

I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?

I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without reali...

Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time. Fashion on the other hand pr...

You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a gla...

Poetry is indispensable - if I only knew what for.

Art is science made clear.

The joy of the young is to disobey - but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders.

The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.

The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is alwa...

A film is a petrified fountain of thought.

Every poem is a coat of arms. It must be deciphered. How much blood, how many tears in exchange for ...

A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.

plantitIt will sproutBut forget about the rustic festivitiesFor the explosive word falls harmlessly ...

To be moved confuses the soul. One cannot convey these kinds of memories any more than the events of...

At all costs the true world of childhood must prevail, must be restored; that world whose momentous,...

A child's reaction to this type of calamity is twofold and extreme. Not knowing how deeply, powerful...

Paris, however―because of her purely fortuitous beauty, because of the old things which have become ...

I suppose the artists invented the firm breasts they put on women, and that in reality all women had...

Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opi...

Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.

One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it.

Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.

All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects an...

The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins ...

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.

The extreme limit of wisdom, that's what the public calls madness.

An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

Life is a horizontal fall.

Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackma...

When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I...

The smell of opium is the least stupid smell in the world.

Fashion is everything that goes out of fashion.

Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.

Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.

One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree...

Certainly I believe in luck. How else do you explain the success of those you don't like?

I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.

The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unabl...

One sits down first one thinks afterwards.

Be yourself. The world worships the original.

The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.

The poet doesn't invent. He listens.

Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other han...

The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.