Jean Cocteau Quotes (79 Quotes)

Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.

Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what's known as infinity.

An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.

Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.

The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.

Life is a horizontal fall.

If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.

The composer opens the cage door for arithmetic, the draftsman gives geometry its freedom.

He has the manner of a giant with the look of a child, a lazy activeness, a mad wisdom, a solitude encompassing the world.

Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.

The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.

The greatest masterpiece of literature is only a dictionary out of order.

The Louvre is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.

Tact in audacity consists in knowing how far we may go too far.

Enough of clouds, waves, aquariums, water-sprites and nocturnal scents what we need is music of the earth, everyday music...music one can live in like a house.

When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.

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.

Tact consists in knowing how far to go too far.

Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.

A car can massage organs which no masseur can reach. It is the one remedy for the disorders of the great sympathetic nervous system.

One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.

True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.

Silence moves faster when it's going backward.

A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.

After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.

If a hermit lives in a state of ecstasy, his lack of comfort becomes the height of comfort. He must relinquish it.

One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends.

What is line It is life. A line must live at each point along its course in such a way that the artist's presence makes itself felt above that of the model. With the writer, line takes precedence over form and content. It runs through the words he assembles. It strikes a continuous note unperceived by ear or eye. It is, in a way, the soul's style, and if the line ceases to have a life of its own, if it only describes an arabesque, the soul is missing and the writing dies.

We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?

If an addict who has been completely cured starts smoking again he no longer experiences the discomfort of his first addiction. There exists, therefore, outside alkaloids and habit, a sense for opium, an intangible habit which lives on, despite the recasting of the organism. The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.

A good upbringing consists in hiding how much you think of yourself, and how little you think of others.

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 worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.

A film is a petrified fountain of thought.

Whatever the public blames you for, cultivate it; it is yourself.

There are too many souls of wood not to love those wooden characters who do indeed have a soul.

The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.

The extreme limit of wisdom, that's what the public calls madness.

It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.

The ear disapproves but tolerates certain musical pieces; transfer them into the domain of our nose, and we will be forced to flee.

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.

Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Vistor Hugo.

I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?

Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.

Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort.

The joy of youth is to disobey but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders.