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 COCTEAUDo as the beautiful woman: see to your figure and your petticoats. Though, of course, I am not speaking literally.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
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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.
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Picasso said that everything is a miracle, that it’s a miracle that we don’t dissolve in our baths.
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I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
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Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
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One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends.
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I have seafoam in my veins, I understand the language of waves.
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Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
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Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.
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You have comfort. You don’t have luxury. And don’t tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have NO Fear or Discomfort.
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The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.
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May the devil himself splatter you with dung.
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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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Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.
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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.
JEAN COCTEAU