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.
JEAN COCTEAU
Listen 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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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.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Listen 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.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
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When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I disturb if I don’t. I have a knack for disturbing.
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The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
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Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work – that’s what makes you unique.
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Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
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Whatever the world condemns you for, make it your own. It is yourself.
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It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious.
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Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
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Since these mysteries exceed my grasp, I shall pretend to have organized them.
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An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
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Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
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If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.
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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.
JEAN COCTEAU -
Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
JEAN COCTEAU