Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
JEAN COCTEAUPoetry 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.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.
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Picasso said that everything is a miracle, that it’s a miracle that we don’t dissolve in our baths.
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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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The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.
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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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The only way to kill death is through photography.
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Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.
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The prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off.
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I have not looked at a newspaper in twenty years; if one is brought into the room, I flee. This is not because I am indifferent but because one cannot follow every road.
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Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
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Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.
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Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.
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Beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.
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May the devil himself splatter you with dung.
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The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.
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