Quotes from Jean Cocteau

Continue reading Proust. His magnificent intelligence is particularly fond of describing stupidity. Which is ultimately exhausting.

Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.

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.

I feel that there is an angel inside me whom I am constantly shocking.

I love cats because I love my home and after a while they become its visible soul.

The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.

Style can make complicated things seem simple, or simple things complicated.

First find, then search.

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

Mirrors are the doors through which Death comes and goes.

The worst fate of a poet is to be admired without being understood.

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.

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.

Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images.

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

Life is a horizontal fall.

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.

I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.

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

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

Silence moves faster when it's going backward.

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

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

The poet doesn't invent. He listens.