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

Jean Cocteau

Do as the beautiful woman: see to your figure and your petticoats. Though, of course, I am not speaking literally.
JEAN COCTEAU

Beautiful Myself See Talk Woman
The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.
JEAN COCTEAU

Animal Count Horse Speed Wasted
It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
JEAN COCTEAU

Addiction Body Oneself
Anything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known.
JEAN COCTEAU

Help Important Recognition
Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.
JEAN COCTEAU

Achievement Elegant Hope Life Live Poetry
And now I have to confess the unpardonable and the scandalous. I am a happy man. And I am going to tell you the secret of my happiness. It is quite simple. I love mankind. I love love. I hate hate. I try to understand and accept.
JEAN COCTEAU

Acceptance Confession Happiness Hate Quite Secret Simplicity Try Understand
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Light Ourselves Poetry Record Role Strict Surprise Word
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
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 COCTEAU

Animal Dog Hope Performance Poetry Religion Service Training
The poet, by composing poems, uses a language that is neither dead nor living, that few people speak, and few people understand We are the servants of an unknown force that lives within us, manipulates us, and dictates this language to us.
JEAN COCTEAU

Creation Force Himself Language Live Manipulation People Poem Poet Understand
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
JEAN COCTEAU

Feeling Goodness Motivational Music Mystery Object
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

Best Friendship God Lost Mercy Myself
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
Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.
JEAN COCTEAU

Creativity Inspirational Motivational World Yourself
A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
JEAN COCTEAU

Fountain Movie One Liner Thinking
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

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

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

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Popular Authors

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