Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
JEAN COCTEAUHere I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
JEAN COCTEAUArt 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 COCTEAUThe ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul.
JEAN COCTEAUYou have comfort. You don’t have luxury. And don’t tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have NO Fear or Discomfort.
JEAN COCTEAUAnything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known.
JEAN COCTEAULove 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 COCTEAUI have not looked at a newspaper in twenty years; if one is brought into the room, I flee. This is not because I am indifferent but because one cannot follow every road.
JEAN COCTEAUThe eyes of the dead are closed gently; we also have to open gently the eyes of the living.
JEAN COCTEAUI have seafoam in my veins, I understand the language of waves.
JEAN COCTEAUBeauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.
JEAN COCTEAUEverything 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.
JEAN COCTEAUPoetry is a religion with no hope.
JEAN COCTEAUNothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and gets nowhere. The moment is the only thing that counts.
JEAN COCTEAUI know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
JEAN COCTEAUMystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what’s known as infinity.
JEAN COCTEAUWhen a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
JEAN COCTEAU