Poetry is indispensable – if I only knew what for.
JEAN COCTEAUAfter the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
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My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away.
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Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.
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Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.
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If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.
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Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.
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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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Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.
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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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The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
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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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Art is science in the flesh.
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Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
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Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
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I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
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