Poetry is a religion with no hope.
JEAN COCTEAUIf a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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Living is a horizontal fall.
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We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?
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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.
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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.
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The joy of the young is to disobey.
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Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.
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I’ve always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.
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Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
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An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
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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.
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I feel myself inhabited by a force or being — very little known to me. It gives the orders; I follow.
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All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
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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.
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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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I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
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