“Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.”
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Famous Jean Cocteau Quotes
“We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?”
“Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.”
“Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.”
Source: Jean Cocteau and André Gide: An Abrasive Friendship
“The extreme limit of wisdom, that's what the public calls madness.”
“I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.”
“A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.”
Source: A Call to Order, Written Between the Years 1918 and 1926 and Including
“An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.”
“It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.”
Source: Opium: The Illustrated Diary of His Cure
Source: The Infernal Machine: And Other Plays
“The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.”
“After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.”
Source: Past tense: diaries
“In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator.”
“The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.”
“If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.”
“The Louvre is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.”
“The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.”
Source: Opium: The Illustrated Diary of His Cure
Source: Opium: The Illustrated Diary of His Cure
Source: The Holy Terrors
Source: Opium: The Illustrated Diary of His Cure
“Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.”
“Silence moves faster when it's going backward.”
Source: Three screenplays: L'Eternel retour, Orphée, La Belle et la bête
“There are too many souls of wood not to love those wooden characters who do indeed have a soul.”
“It is not inspiration; it is expiration.”
Source: The Difficulty of Being
“When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.”
“Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.”
“Look out! Be on your guard, because alone of all the arts, music moves all around you.”
Source: Cocteau's world: an anthology of writings
“One is either judge or accused. The judge sits, the accused stands. Live on your feet.”