Quotes By Jean Cocteau
Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.
Jean Cocteau
The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.
Jean Cocteau
Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
Jean Cocteau
Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.
Jean Cocteau
True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.
Jean Cocteau
Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.
Jean Cocteau
You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
Jean Cocteau
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.
Jean Cocteau
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
Jean Cocteau
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.
Jean Cocteau
If a hermit lives in a state of ecstasy, his lack of comfort becomes the height of comfort. He must relinquish it.
Jean Cocteau
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.
Jean Cocteau
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
Jean Cocteau