An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
JEAN COCTEAUMy method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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Art is science in the flesh.
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The poet, by composing poems, uses a language that is neither dead nor living, that few people speak, and few people understand We are the servants of an unknown force that lives within us, manipulates us, and dictates this language to us.
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An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
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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.
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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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Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort.
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When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I disturb if I don’t. I have a knack for disturbing.
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The ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul.
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Living is a horizontal fall.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
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Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
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Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
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Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
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We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.
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All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
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One must not mistake majority for truth.
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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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May the devil himself splatter you with dung.
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Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.
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Picasso said that everything is a miracle, that it’s a miracle that we don’t dissolve in our baths.
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Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.
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Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
JEAN COCTEAU