After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
JEAN COCTEAUWe are in a period of such individualism that one no longer speaks of disciples; one speaks of thieves.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
-
-
When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I disturb if I don’t. I have a knack for disturbing.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort.
JEAN COCTEAU -
You’ve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.
JEAN COCTEAU -
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 -
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.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
JEAN COCTEAU -
I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
JEAN COCTEAU -
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 -
It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Art is science in the flesh.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.
JEAN COCTEAU -
The extreme limit of wisdom, that’s what the public calls madness.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.
JEAN COCTEAU