An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
JEAN COCTEAUI 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.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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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.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.
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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 -
Anything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known.
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I’ve always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.
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I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
JEAN COCTEAU -
It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious.
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A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
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May the devil himself splatter you with dung.
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It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
JEAN COCTEAU -
The joy of the young is to disobey.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
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Poetry is indispensable – if I only knew what for.
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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 -
Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images.
JEAN COCTEAU