Jean Cocteau
21 quotations
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
I am a lie who always speaks the truth.
Life is a horizontal fall.
The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
The Louver is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.
The joy of youth is to disobey; but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders.
When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
Art is science made clear.
One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.
Poetry is indispensable --if I only knew what for.
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
Tact is knowing how far to go too far.
Tact in audacity consists in knowing how far we may go too far.
The extreme limit of wisdom --that's what the public calls madness.
It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.
I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.