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 COCTEAUEvery day in the mirror I watch death at work.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
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A true photographer is as rare as a true poet or a true painter.
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Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.
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Do as the beautiful woman: see to your figure and your petticoats. Though, of course, I am not speaking literally.
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Not only should you not accept a prize. You should not try to deserve one either.
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The ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul.
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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.
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Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
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Nothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and gets nowhere. The moment is the only thing that counts.
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Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.
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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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An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
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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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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.
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Poetry is indispensable – if I only knew what for.
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