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 COCTEAUAfter 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.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.
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Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
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Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
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Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly.
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We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?
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The extreme limit of wisdom, that’s what the public calls madness.
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I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
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Beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.
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The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.
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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.
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The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
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The joy of the young is to disobey.
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It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
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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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Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
JEAN COCTEAU