Jean Cocteau Quotes - Page 4

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• I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.

  Jean Cocteau

  Poetry, Indispensable, Poetry Is

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• Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo

  Jean Cocteau

  Madmen

  Opium: The Diary of a Cure (1930)

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• In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator.

  Jean Cocteau

  Paris, Actors, Want

  "Le Coq et l'Arlequin". Essay by Jean Cocteau, 1918.

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• When we awake it is the animal, the plant, that thinks in us. Primitive thought without the least disguise. We see a terrible universe, because we see clearly. A little later, intelligence introduces its impeding contrivances. It brings the little toys which man invents in order to hide the void. It is then that we think we are seeing clearly. We attribute our uneasiness to the miasmas of the brain as it passes from dream to reality.

  Jean Cocteau

  Dream, Animal, Reality

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

  Jean Cocteau

  Art, Raw Materials, Paper

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• Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work - that's what makes you unique.

  Jean Cocteau

  Unique, Firsts, Critics

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• 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.

  Jean Cocteau

  Writing, Knack, Painting

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

  Jean Cocteau

  Death, Dying, News

  "Visite". Discours du Grand Sommeil, 1920.

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

  Jean Cocteau

  Crucifixion Of Christ, Crowds, Crucifixion

  Le Coq et l'Arlequin (1918) in Le Rappel ... l'ordre (Recall to Order, 1926) p. 39

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

  Jean Cocteau

  Life, Art, Children

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• 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.

  Jean Cocteau

  Dream, Regret, Cutting

  "La Difficulté d'Etre ('The Difficulty of Being')". Book by Jean Cocteau, 1947.

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• 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.

  Jean Cocteau

  Childhood, Quality, Adults

  Jean Cocteau (1966). “The Holy Terrors (Les Enfants Terribles)”, p.23, New Directions Publishing

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• A true photographer is as rare as a true poet or a true painter.

  Jean Cocteau

  Photographer, Poet, Painter

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• Do as the beautiful woman: see to your figure and your petticoats. Though, of course, I am not speaking literally.

  Jean Cocteau

  Beautiful, Beautiful Women, Figures

  "Diary of an Unknown". Book by Jean Cocteau, 1988.

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• And now I have to confess the unpardonable and the scandalous. I am a happy man. And I am going to tell you the secret of my happiness. It is quite simple. I love mankind. I love love. I hate hate. I try to understand and accept.

  Jean Cocteau

  Hate, Simple, Men

  Jean Cocteau (1964). “The journals of Jean Cocteau”

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• I feel myself inhabited by a force or being -- very little known to me. It gives the orders; I follow.

  Jean Cocteau

  Order, Giving, Littles

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• Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.

  Jean Cocteau

  Light, Poetry, Roles

  "A Call to Order". Book by Jean Cocteau, 1926.

  52 Copy quote

• There is always a period when a man with a beard shaves it off. This period does not last. He returns headlong to his beard.

  Jean Cocteau

  Men, Doe, Lasts

  Jean Cocteau (1990). “Opium: The Illustrated Diary of His Cure”, Peter Owen Publishers

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• Silence moves faster when it's going backward.

  Jean Cocteau

  Moving, Silence, Faster

  Jean Cocteau (1972). “Three screenplays: L'Eternel retour, Orphée, La Belle et la bête”

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

  Jean Cocteau

  God, Mystery Novels, Infinity

  Jean Cocteau (1967). “The Infernal Machine: And Other Plays”, p.35, New Directions Publishing

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• A film is a petrified fountain of thought.

  Jean Cocteau

  Art, Gambling, Film

  Esquire magazine, February 1961.

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• My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away.

  Jean Cocteau

  Simple, Names, Whispering

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• The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.

  Jean Cocteau

  Sports, Wisdom, Horse

  Jean Cocteau (1926). “A call to order: written between the years 1918 and 1926 and including Cock and harlequin, Professional secrets, and other critical essays”, Haskell House Pub Ltd

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• Poetry is indispensable - if I only knew what for.

  Jean Cocteau

  Art, Poetry, Indispensable

  "The Necessity of Art". Book by Ernst Fischer, 1959.

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• Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly.

  Jean Cocteau

  Attitude, Mind, May

  Jean Cocteau (1966). “The Holy Terrors (Les Enfants Terribles)”, p.85, New Directions Publishing

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