The job of the poet (a job which can’t be learned) consists of placing those objects of the visible world which have become invisible due to the glue of habit, in an unusual position which strikes the soul and gives them a tragic force.
JEAN COCTEAUNothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and gets nowhere. The moment is the only thing that counts.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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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.
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Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
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Poetry is a religion with no hope.
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If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.
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I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
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French people are Italian people in a bad mood.
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The eyes of the dead are closed gently; we also have to open gently the eyes of the living.
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You’ve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
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An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
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It is difficult to live without opium after having known it because it is difficult, after knowing opium, to take earth seriously. And unless one is a saint, it is difficult to live without taking earth seriously.
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Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
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A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
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Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.
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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.
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Poetry is indispensable – if I only knew what for.
JEAN COCTEAU