Quotes from Jean Cocteau

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

The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.

The ultimate politeness in art consists of speaking only to those who are able to uncover and measure its relationships. Anything else is symbolic, and symbolism is merely transcendental imagery.

Look out! Be on your guard, because alone of all the arts, music moves all around you.

Art is science made clear.

The runner stopped dead, lost his balance, froze in one of those violent attitudes in which the photographers petrify living reality.

Beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.

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

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

The course of a river is almost always disapproved of by the source.

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

Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.

The only way to kill death is through photography.

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

The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.

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.

One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it.

If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.

Be a constant outrage to modesty There is nothing to fear: modesty is exercised only among the blind.

Do not fear being ridiculous in relation to the ridiculous.

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

The preservation of friendship is seen as opportunism. You are required to be in one camp or the other. You are enjoined to cut your heartstrings if they extend across the barricade.

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

I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you don't like?