black
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Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.

Jean Cocteau

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

Light Ourselves Poetry Record Role Strict Surprise Word
Anything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known.
JEAN COCTEAU

Help Important Recognition
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

Art Artist Bad Fame Give Up Reward Success
Do as the beautiful woman: see to your figure and your petticoats. Though, of course, I am not speaking literally.
JEAN COCTEAU

Beautiful Myself See Talk Woman
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Beautiful Fashion Hands Production Time Ugly
May the devil himself splatter you with dung.
JEAN COCTEAU

Devil Dirty Yourself
Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Conscious Deep Marriage Philosophy Spiritual
If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
JEAN COCTEAU

Believe Deep Dreams Famous Poet
Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.
JEAN COCTEAU

Achievement Elegant Hope Life Live Poetry
It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious.
JEAN COCTEAU

Believe Deep Religious Spirit
Love is mainly an affair of short spasms. If these spasms disappoint us, love dies. It is very seldom that it weathers the experience and becomes friendship.
JEAN COCTEAU

Disappoint Experience Friendship Love Short
Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Moral Praise
Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.
JEAN COCTEAU

Criticism Cultivate Hate Unique Work Yourself
I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
JEAN COCTEAU

Myself Poetry Talk
My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away.
JEAN COCTEAU

Drive Myself Name Poetry Simplicity Wait
Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.
JEAN COCTEAU

Children Mad Patience Poet Try

Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.

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Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.

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Popular Authors

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