Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
JEAN COCTEAUThe 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.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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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.
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The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.
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We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?
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After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
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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.
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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.
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Beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.
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There’s no such thing as love; only proof of love.
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Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
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Such 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.
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May the devil himself splatter you with dung.
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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.
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Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.
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The extreme limit of wisdom, that’s what the public calls madness.
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I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
JEAN COCTEAU






