The eyes of the dead are closed gently; we also have to open gently the eyes of the living.
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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Poetry is indispensable – if I only knew what for.
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French people are Italian people in a bad mood.
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Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.
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The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
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Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
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One must not mistake majority for truth.
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The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.
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Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.
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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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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.
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The joy of the young is to disobey.
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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.
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If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
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Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.
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Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
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