Quotes from Jean Cocteau

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

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

What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show. Jacques felt himself growing gloomy again. He was well aware that to live on earth a man must follow its fashions, and hearts were no longer worn.

I am a lie that always speaks the truth.

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

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.

I am burning myself up and will always do so.

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.

I've always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.

At all costs the true world of childhood must prevail, must be restored; that world whose momentous, heroic, mysterious quality is fed on airy nothings, whose substance is so ill-fitted to withstand the brutal touch of adult inquisition.

It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious.

When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I disturb if I don't. I have a knack for disturbing.

All spiritual journeys are martyrdoms

A little too much is just enough for me.

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.

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.

I'm not willing just to be tolerated. That wounds my love of love and of liberty.

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

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

The smell of opium is the least stupid smell in the world.

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

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

Poetry is a religion without hope. The poet exhausts himself in its service, knowing that, in the long run, a masterpiece is nothing but the performance of a trained dog on very shaky ground.

Respect movements, flee schools.