A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
JEAN COCTEAULiving is a horizontal fall.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.
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Picasso said that everything is a miracle, that it’s a miracle that we don’t dissolve in our baths.
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Art is science in the flesh.
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Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
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The speed of a runaway horse counts for 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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Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images.
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If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
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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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Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.
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Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
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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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I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
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