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 COCTEAUWe must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.
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We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel.
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The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.
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Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.
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One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends.
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The ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul.
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I’ve always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.
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I have seafoam in my veins, I understand the language of waves.
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If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.
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What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
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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.
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Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.
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Poetry is indispensable – if I only knew what for.
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Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.
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A true photographer is as rare as a true poet or a true painter.
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