I’ve always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.
JEAN COCTEAUA true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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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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Poetry 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.
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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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Art is science in the flesh.
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The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
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Silence moves faster when it’s going backward.
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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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After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
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Never do what a specialist can do better. Discover your own specialty. Do not despair if your specialty appears to be more delicate, a lesser thing. Make up in finesse what you lose in force.
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Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.
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May the devil himself splatter you with dung.
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Poetry is a religion with no hope.
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Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
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The public is never pleased with what we do, wanting always a copy of what we have done.
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An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
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