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 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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The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
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Nothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and gets nowhere. The moment is the only thing that counts.
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It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
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And now I have to confess the unpardonable and the scandalous. I am a happy man. And I am going to tell you the secret of my happiness. It is quite simple. I love mankind. I love love. I hate hate. I try to understand and accept.
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Anything of any importance cannot help but be unrecognizable, since it bears no resemblance to anything already known.
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Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
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Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
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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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All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
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Living is a horizontal fall.
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The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.
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Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.
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Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
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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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There’s no such thing as love; only proof of love.
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