Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
JEAN COCTEAULying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
-
-
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 -
Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.
JEAN COCTEAU -
The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.
JEAN COCTEAU -
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
JEAN COCTEAU -
It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
JEAN COCTEAU -
A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Poetry is a religion without hope. The poet exhausts himself in its service, knowing that, in the long run, a masterpiece is nothing but the performance of a trained dog on very shaky ground.
JEAN COCTEAU -
The public is never pleased with what we do, wanting always a copy of what we have done.
JEAN COCTEAU -
When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
JEAN COCTEAU -
My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Art 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 COCTEAU -
Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Nothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and gets nowhere. The moment is the only thing that counts.
JEAN COCTEAU -
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 -
The ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.
JEAN COCTEAU -
If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
JEAN COCTEAU -
French people are Italian people in a bad mood.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
JEAN COCTEAU -
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.
JEAN COCTEAU -
The eyes of the dead are closed gently; we also have to open gently the eyes of the living.
JEAN COCTEAU -
I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Poetry is indispensable – if I only knew what for.
JEAN COCTEAU