Poetry is a religion with no hope.
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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Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.
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All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
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Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
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Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
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My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away.
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It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious.
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Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
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Love is mainly an affair of short spasms. If these spasms disappoint us, love dies. It is very seldom that it weathers the experience and becomes friendship.
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What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
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Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.
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One must not mistake majority for truth.
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Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.
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I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
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When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
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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