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I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.

Jean Cocteau

I only fear the death of others. For me, true death is that of the people I love.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Fear Love Myself People
Do as the beautiful woman: see to your figure and your petticoats. Though, of course, I am not speaking literally.
JEAN COCTEAU

Beautiful Myself See Talk Woman
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
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
JEAN COCTEAU

Artist Copy Job Order Original
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
It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious.
JEAN COCTEAU

Believe Deep Religious Spirit
Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.
JEAN COCTEAU

Criticism Cultivate Hate Unique Work Yourself
Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.
JEAN COCTEAU

Elegant Existence Notice
Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.
JEAN COCTEAU

Day Death Mirror Myself Work
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
A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
JEAN COCTEAU

Himself Poet Rose True
You’ve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
JEAN COCTEAU

Death Mirror See Yourself
The prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off.
JEAN COCTEAU

Beautiful Clothes Sex
Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.
JEAN COCTEAU

Myself Mystery Organization Pretend
Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.
JEAN COCTEAU

Acceptance Rejection Youth
Picasso said that everything is a miracle, that it’s a miracle that we don’t dissolve in our baths.
JEAN COCTEAU

Funny Magic Miracle Ourselves Water
Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility… It insists on living its own life.
JEAN COCTEAU

Achievement Elegant Hope Life Live Poetry
Art is science in the flesh.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Body One Liner Science
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.
JEAN COCTEAU

Difficult Earth Live Serious
If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
JEAN COCTEAU

Believe Deep Dreams Famous Poet
The poet, by composing poems, uses a language that is neither dead nor living, that few people speak, and few people understand We are the servants of an unknown force that lives within us, manipulates us, and dictates this language to us.
JEAN COCTEAU

Creation Force Himself Language Live Manipulation People Poem Poet Understand
I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
JEAN COCTEAU

Myself Poetry Talk
Lying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Lying Preference Reality
French people are Italian people in a bad mood.
JEAN COCTEAU

Attitude Bad Identity Mood People Personality
The only way to kill death is through photography.
JEAN COCTEAU

Camera Death Kill Photography Way
Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
JEAN COCTEAU

Art Past Religious Time
What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
JEAN COCTEAU

Criticism Cultivate Hate Inspirational Motivational Public Yourself

I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.

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I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.

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Popular Authors

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