When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
JEAN COCTEAUIt is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.
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I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
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A true photographer is as rare as a true poet or a true painter.
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Not only should you not accept a prize. You should not try to deserve one either.
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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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Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
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Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
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Poetry is indispensable – if I only knew what for.
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After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
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If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.
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An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
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You’ve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
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What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
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Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.
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The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.
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The joy of the young is to disobey.
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We are in a period of such individualism that one no longer speaks of disciples; one speaks of thieves.
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The extreme limit of wisdom, that’s what the public calls madness.
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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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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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Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images.
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The prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off.
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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.
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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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Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.
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A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
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