Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.
JEAN COCTEAUEvery day in the mirror I watch death at work.
JEAN COCTEAUThe poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
JEAN COCTEAUNot only should you not accept a prize. You should not try to deserve one either.
JEAN COCTEAUPoetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.
JEAN COCTEAUArt is science in the flesh.
JEAN COCTEAUYou’ve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
JEAN COCTEAUSince these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.
JEAN COCTEAUThe dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.
JEAN COCTEAUHere I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
JEAN COCTEAUAnd 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 COCTEAUOne 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.
JEAN COCTEAUWhat the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
JEAN COCTEAUAppreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
JEAN COCTEAUArt is not a pastime but a priesthood.
JEAN COCTEAUEverything 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 COCTEAUPoetry is indispensable – if I only knew what for.
JEAN COCTEAU