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Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.

Jean Cocteau

I have seafoam in my veins, I understand the language of waves.
JEAN COCTEAU

Language Myself Nature Ocean Understand
Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Live Myself Teaching Try
Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.
JEAN COCTEAU

Himself Reading Stupidity
You have comfort. You don’t have luxury. And don’t tell me that money plays a part. The luxury I advocate has nothing to do with money. It cannot be bought. It is the reward of those who have NO Fear or Discomfort.
JEAN COCTEAU

Comfortable Fear Luxury Money Play Reward
Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Moral Praise
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
JEAN COCTEAU

Feeling Goodness Motivational Music Mystery Object
Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.
JEAN COCTEAU

Achievement Elegant Hope Life Live Poetry
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
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 COCTEAU

Poison Reading Remove Temptation Writing Yourself
A true photographer is as rare as a true poet or a true painter.
JEAN COCTEAU

Artist Paint Photograph Poet Rare True
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Animal Dog Hope Performance Poetry Religion Service Training
A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
JEAN COCTEAU

Fountain Movie One Liner Thinking
The public is never pleased with what we do, wanting always a copy of what we have done.
JEAN COCTEAU

Imitation Ourselves Public
I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
JEAN COCTEAU

Myself Poetry Talk
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?
JEAN COCTEAU

Believe Explanation Luck
A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
JEAN COCTEAU

Himself Poet Rose True

Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.

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Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

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