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I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.

Jean Cocteau

If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.
JEAN COCTEAU

Choice Death Kill Option Save Torture
Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
JEAN COCTEAU

Beginning Born Death Deep Life Myself Perspective Rush Walk
I’ve always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.
JEAN COCTEAU

Deep Difference History Illusion Myth Mythology Perspective Reality Truth
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

Difficult Earth Live Serious
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 COCTEAU

Alcohol Comfortable Drugs Escape Lying Man Moments Myth Seek
The only way to kill death is through photography.
JEAN COCTEAU

Camera Death Kill Photography Way
Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Conscious Deep Marriage Philosophy Spiritual
May the devil himself splatter you with dung.
JEAN COCTEAU

Devil Dirty Yourself
The eyes of the dead are closed gently; we also have to open gently the eyes of the living.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Eyes Live
Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don’t like – then cultivate it. That’s the only part of your work that’s individual and worth keeping.
JEAN COCTEAU

Care Criticism Listening Work Yourself
Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.
JEAN COCTEAU

Day Death Mirror Myself Work
Lying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Lying Preference Reality
Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.
JEAN COCTEAU

Achievement Elegant Hope Life Live Poetry
Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.
JEAN COCTEAU

Myself Mystery Organization Pretend
Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Moral Praise
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

Display Disturb Myself Paint Writing

I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.

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I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.

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