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 COCTEAUArt produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
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Beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.
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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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Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.
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The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.
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Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
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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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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.
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The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.
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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.
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One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends.
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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.
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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.
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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.
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The only way to kill death is through photography.
JEAN COCTEAU