After you have written a thing and you reread it, there is always the temptation to fix it up, to improve it, to remove its poison, blunt its sting.
JEAN COCTEAUAfter you have written a thing and you reread it, there is always the temptation to fix it up, to improve it, to remove its poison, blunt its sting.
JEAN COCTEAUWe shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.
JEAN COCTEAUArt is not a pastime but a priesthood.
JEAN COCTEAUMystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what’s known as infinity.
JEAN COCTEAUNot only should you not accept a prize. You should not try to deserve one either.
JEAN COCTEAUThe public is never pleased with what we do, wanting always a copy of what we have done.
JEAN COCTEAUThe poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
JEAN COCTEAUCultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.
JEAN COCTEAUSuch is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.
JEAN COCTEAUThe prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off.
JEAN COCTEAUAn original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
JEAN COCTEAUA true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
JEAN COCTEAUFight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
JEAN COCTEAUI feel myself inhabited by a force or being — very little known to me. It gives the orders; I follow.
JEAN COCTEAUTact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
JEAN COCTEAUArt is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
JEAN COCTEAU