black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.

Jean Cocteau

I have seafoam in my veins, I understand the language of waves.
JEAN COCTEAU

Language Myself Nature Ocean Understand
The eyes of the dead are closed gently; we also have to open gently the eyes of the living.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Eyes Live
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Poison Reading Remove Temptation Writing Yourself
It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious.
JEAN COCTEAU

Believe Deep Religious Spirit
Not only should you not accept a prize. You should not try to deserve one either.
JEAN COCTEAU

Acceptance Deserve Oneself Reward Yourself
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

Art Artist Bad Fame Give Up Reward Success
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Comfortable Fear Luxury Money Play Reward
After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Journal Receive Writing
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
JEAN COCTEAU

Artist Copy Job Order Original
Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Live Myself Teaching Try
Anything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known.
JEAN COCTEAU

Help Important Recognition
French people are Italian people in a bad mood.
JEAN COCTEAU

Attitude Bad Identity Mood People Personality
Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
JEAN COCTEAU

Action Appearance Youth
Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Conscious Deep Marriage Philosophy Spiritual
Lying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Lying Preference Reality
Picasso said that everything is a miracle, that it’s a miracle that we don’t dissolve in our baths.
JEAN COCTEAU

Funny Magic Miracle Ourselves Water

Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Jean Cocteau Quotes