Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.
JEAN COCTEAUMan 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.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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I 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.
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Lying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality.
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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.
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Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.
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I feel myself inhabited by a force or being — very little known to me. It gives the orders; I follow.
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We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.
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I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
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I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.
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The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
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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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All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
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Poetry is a religion with no hope.
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The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.
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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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Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.
JEAN COCTEAU