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 COCTEAUAn original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
-
-
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?
JEAN COCTEAU -
Love is mainly an affair of short spasms. If these spasms disappoint us, love dies. It is very seldom that it weathers the experience and becomes friendship.
JEAN COCTEAU -
French people are Italian people in a bad mood.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Picasso said that everything is a miracle, that it’s a miracle that we don’t dissolve in our baths.
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 -
Art is science in the flesh.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Do as the beautiful woman: see to your figure and your petticoats. Though, of course, I am not speaking literally.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Not only should you not accept a prize. You should not try to deserve one either.
JEAN COCTEAU -
It is difficult to live without opium after having known it because it is difficult, after knowing opium, to take earth seriously. And unless one is a saint, it is difficult to live without taking earth seriously.
JEAN COCTEAU -
The extreme limit of wisdom, that’s what the public calls madness.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Never do what a specialist can do better. Discover your own specialty. Do not despair if your specialty appears to be more delicate, a lesser thing. Make up in finesse what you lose in force.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.
JEAN COCTEAU






