Jean Cocteau

• "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.“
• "An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.“
• "Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.“
• "Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.“
• "Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.“
• "Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.“
• "The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.“
• "I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.“
• "Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.“
• "Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.“
• "You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.“
• "After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.“
• "The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.“
• "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.“
• "The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, one is always bewildered by their simplicity, their grandeur of design, and by that element of the bizarre which seems inherent in them.“
• "I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.“
• "All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.“
• "I love cats because I enjoy my home and little by little, they become its visible soul.“
• "I love cats because I enjoy my home and little by little, they become its visible soul.“
• "Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.“
• "A film is a petrified fountain of thought.“
• "All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.“
• "I love cats because I enjoy my home and little by little, they become its visible soul.“
• "The poet doesn't invent. He listens.“
• "A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.“
• "Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.“
• "The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.“
• "Poetry is indispensable - if I only knew what for.“
• "I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.“
• "The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the finish by loading honors on your head.“
• "We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?“
• "I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?“
• "The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.“
• "I am a lie who always speaks the truth.“
• "The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.“
• "The extreme limit of wisdom, that's what the public calls madness.“
• "Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.“

Other authors you might be
interested in

Rachel True

Alicia Witt

Bindi Irwin

Karen O

Berenice Bejo

Guy Clark

Monica Keena

Dylan O'Brien

Jeff Hawkins




Browse all authors