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 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.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
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Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
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The job of the poet (a job which can’t be learned) consists of placing those objects of the visible world which have become invisible due to the glue of habit, in an unusual position which strikes the soul and gives them a tragic force.
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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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Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.
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The extreme limit of wisdom, that’s what the public calls madness.
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The eyes of the dead are closed gently; we also have to open gently the eyes of the living.
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I have not looked at a newspaper in twenty years; if one is brought into the room, I flee. This is not because I am indifferent but because one cannot follow every road.
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Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.
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Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what’s known as infinity.
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Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.
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The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.
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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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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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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.
JEAN COCTEAU