Quotes By Jean Cocteau

The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.

The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.

Poetry is indispensable - if I only knew what for.

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.

The Louvre is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.

Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.

There are too many souls of wood not to love those wooden characters who do indeed have a soul.

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

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

The poet doesn't invent. He listens.

Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what's known as infinity.

A film is a petrified fountain of thought.

If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.

It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.

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.

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.

We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?

The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.

The ear disapproves but tolerates certain musical pieces; transfer them into the domain of our nose, and we will be forced to flee.

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.

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

Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.

The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.

Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.

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.

All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.