French people are Italian people in a bad mood.
JEAN COCTEAUMan 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.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
-
-
Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.
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 -
Anything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known.
JEAN COCTEAU -
I feel myself inhabited by a force or being — very little known to me. It gives the orders; I follow.
JEAN COCTEAU -
When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
JEAN COCTEAU -
I’ve always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.
JEAN COCTEAU -
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.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Art is science in the flesh.
JEAN COCTEAU -
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?
JEAN COCTEAU -
Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what’s known as infinity.
JEAN COCTEAU -
The only way to kill death is through photography.
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 -
The poet, by composing poems, uses a language that is neither dead nor living, that few people speak, and few people understand We are the servants of an unknown force that lives within us, manipulates us, and dictates this language to us.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.
JEAN COCTEAU