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Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.

Jean Cocteau

Never do what a specialist can do better. Discover your own specialty. Do not despair if your specialty appears to be more delicate, a lesser thing. Make up in finesse what you lose in force.
JEAN COCTEAU

Appearance Better Delicate Discover Force Lose Yourself
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
JEAN COCTEAU

Feeling Goodness Motivational Music Mystery Object
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

Death Mirror See Yourself
Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.
JEAN COCTEAU

Achievement Elegant Hope Life Live Poetry
An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Artist Discussion Plant Talk Voice
French people are Italian people in a bad mood.
JEAN COCTEAU

Attitude Bad Identity Mood People Personality
The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.
JEAN COCTEAU

Animal Count Horse Speed Wasted
May the devil himself splatter you with dung.
JEAN COCTEAU

Devil Dirty Yourself
Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.
JEAN COCTEAU

Criticism Cultivate Hate Unique Work Yourself
Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Moral Praise
I have not looked at a newspaper in twenty years; if one is brought into the room, I flee. This is not because I am indifferent but because one cannot follow every road.
JEAN COCTEAU

Difference Follow Myself Road Room
Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don’t like – then cultivate it. That’s the only part of your work that’s individual and worth keeping.
JEAN COCTEAU

Care Criticism Listening Work Yourself
The eyes of the dead are closed gently; we also have to open gently the eyes of the living.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Eyes Live
The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
JEAN COCTEAU

Deep Lying One Liner Poet Talk Truth
Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.
JEAN COCTEAU

Creativity Inspirational Motivational World Yourself
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
JEAN COCTEAU

Complication Simplicity Style Way

Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.

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Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.

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