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An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

Jean Cocteau

Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.
JEAN COCTEAU

Children Mad Patience Poet Try
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
Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.
JEAN COCTEAU

Day Death Mirror Myself Work
After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Journal Receive Writing
Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
JEAN COCTEAU

Audacity Far Journey Yourself
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Poison Reading Remove Temptation Writing Yourself
The joy of the young is to disobey.
JEAN COCTEAU

Joy Obey One Liner Young
We are in a period of such individualism that one no longer speaks of disciples; one speaks of thieves.
JEAN COCTEAU

Discipline Oneself Period Talk Theft
Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.
JEAN COCTEAU

Himself Reading Stupidity
If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
JEAN COCTEAU

Believe Deep Dreams Famous Poet
The job of the poet (a job which can’t be learned) consists of placing those objects of the visible world which have become invisible due to the glue of habit, in an unusual position which strikes the soul and gives them a tragic force.
JEAN COCTEAU

Force Habit Learning Object Place Poet Position Soul Tragedy Visible World
A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
JEAN COCTEAU

Himself Poet Rose True
It is difficult to live without opium after having known it because it is difficult, after knowing opium, to take earth seriously. And unless one is a saint, it is difficult to live without taking earth seriously.
JEAN COCTEAU

Difficult Earth Live Serious
The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
JEAN COCTEAU

Deep Lying One Liner Poet Talk Truth
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
JEAN COCTEAU

Complication Simplicity Style Way
You’ve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Mirror See Yourself
Everything 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 COCTEAU

Death Expression Life Love Oneself Training
The extreme limit of wisdom, that’s what the public calls madness.
JEAN COCTEAU

Call Limitation Public Wisdom
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Creation Force Himself Language Live Manipulation People Poem Poet Understand
Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.
JEAN COCTEAU

Elegant Existence Notice
One must not mistake majority for truth.
JEAN COCTEAU

Deep Mistake One Liner Oneself Truth
Art is science in the flesh.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Body One Liner Science
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Care Criticism Listening Work Yourself
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Acceptance Confession Happiness Hate Quite Secret Simplicity Try Understand
It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious.
JEAN COCTEAU

Believe Deep Religious Spirit
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Difference Follow Myself Road Room
The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Drugs Ghost Home

An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

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An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

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