When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
JEAN COCTEAULying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality.
More Jean Cocteau Quotes
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I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
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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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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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I have not looked at a newspaper in twenty years; if one is brought into the room, I flee. This is not because I am indifferent but because one cannot follow every road.
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Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
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Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.
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The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
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Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
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The ability to laugh heartily is the sign of a healthy soul.
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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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French people are Italian people in a bad mood.
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I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
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Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.
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A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
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My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away.
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