If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
JEAN COCTEAUListen 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.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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Poetry is a religion with no hope.
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The ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul.
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An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
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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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Art is science in the flesh.
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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 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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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.
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Poetry is indispensable – if I only knew what for.
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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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Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what’s known as infinity.
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Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.
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Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
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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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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.
JEAN COCTEAU