Jean Cocteau (1889 – 1963)
French poet, novelist, painter, and filmmaker.
Disavow anyone who provokes or accepts the extermination of a race to which he does not belong.
Be a mere assistant to your unconscious. Do only half the work. The rest will do itself.
Do not close the circle. Leave it open. Descartes closes the circle. Pascal leaves it open. Rousseau's triumph over the encyclopedists is to have left his circle open when they closed theirs.
The ear disapproves but tolerates certain musical pieces; transfer them into the domain of our nose, and we will be forced to flee.
Film will only become an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.
Commissions suit me. They set limits. Jean Marais dared me to write play in which he would not speak in the first act, would weep for joy in the second and in the last would fall backward down a flight of stairs.
Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility. In that case, you ask me, of what use is it? Of no use. Who will see it? No one. Which does not prevent it from being an outrage to modesty, though its exhibitionism is squandered on the blind. It is enough for poetry to express a personal ethic, which can then break away in the form of a work. It insists on living its own life. It becomes the pretext for a thousand misunderstandings that go by the name of glory...
Understand that some of your enemies are amongst your best friends.
Look out! Be on your guard, because alone of all the arts, music moves all around you.
The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
The skin of all of us is responsive to gypsy songs and military marches.
Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal... unnable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort, the trifling feeling of escape experienced at a masked ball. He distances himself from that which he feels and sees. He invents. He transfigures. He mythifies. He creates. He fancies himself an artist. He imitates, in his small way, the painters he claims are mad.
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.
Do as the beautiful woman: see to your figure and your petticoats. Though, of course, I am not speaking literally.
Expect neither reward nor beatitude. Return noble waves for ignoble.
Compromise yourself. Obscure your own trail.
I am a lie who always speaks the truth.
Allow the power of the soul to grow as flagrant as the power of sex.