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

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More quotes from: Jean Cocteau

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• "A film is a petrified fountain of thought. "
• "A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent ..."
• "After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter. "
• "All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects ..."
• "An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture. "
• "An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order ..."
• "Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious. "
• "Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other ..."
• "Being tactful in audacity is knowing how far one can go to far. "
• "Commissions suit me. They set limits. Jean Marais dared me to write play in which ..."
• "Don't for a moment believe He was killing the young; He was costuming angels. "
• "Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. ..."
• "He has the manner of a giant with the look of a child, a lazy ..."
• "Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death ..."
• "I am a lie who always speaks the truth. "
• "I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike? "
• "I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy ..."
• "If a hermit lives in a state of ecstasy, his lack of comfort becomes the ..."
• "If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save ..."
• "In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator. "

• "It is not I who become addicted, it is my body. "
• "Life is a horizontal fall. "
• "Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his ..."
• "Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they ..."
• "One must be a living man and a posthumous artist. "
• "One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With ..."
• "Poetry is indispensable - if I only knew what for. "
• "Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently. "
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• "Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. ..."
• "Tact in audacity consists in knowing how far we may go too far. "
• "Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far. "
• "Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the ..."
• "That pile of paper on his left side went on living like the watch on ..."
• "The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to one's preconceived ideas. In the event, ..."
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• "The extreme limit of wisdom, that's what the public calls madness. "
• "The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order. "
• "The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. ..."

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• "The Louvre is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends. "
• "The poet doesn't invent. He listens. "
• "The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth. "
• "The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed. "
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• "The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood. "
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• "True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us ..."
• "Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Vistor Hugo. "
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• "What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you. "
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