When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
JEAN COCTEAUNot only should you not accept a prize. You should not try to deserve one either.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
-
-
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 -
Lying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
JEAN COCTEAU -
I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Not only should you not accept a prize. You should not try to deserve one either.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
JEAN COCTEAU -
After you have written a thing and you reread it, there is always the temptation to fix it up, to improve it, to remove its poison, blunt its sting.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.
JEAN COCTEAU -
The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.
JEAN COCTEAU -
And now I have to confess the unpardonable and the scandalous. I am a happy man. And I am going to tell you the secret of my happiness. It is quite simple. I love mankind. I love love. I hate hate. I try to understand and accept.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
JEAN COCTEAU -
I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
JEAN COCTEAU