Jean Cocteau

"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."

"There are truths which one can only say after having won the right to say them."

"We shelter an angel within us. We must be the guardians of that angel."

"Look out! Be on your guard, because alone of all the arts, music moves all around you."

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

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

"The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood."

"The extreme limit of wisdom — that’s what the public calls madness."

"Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far."

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

"A prig always finds a last refuge in responsibility."

"I am a lie who always speaks the truth."

"The Louvre is like the morgue; one goes there to identify one’s friends."

"Poets don’t draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently."

"True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing."

"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."

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

"Depuis le jour de ma naissance, ma mort s'est mise en marche. Elle marche à ma rencontre, sans se presser."

"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."

"What is line? It is life. A line must live at each point along its course in such a way that the artist’s presence makes itself felt above that of the model... With the writer, line takes precedence over form and content. It runs through the words he assembles. It strikes a continuous note unperceived by ear or eye. It is, in a way, the soul’s style, and if the line ceases to have a life of its own, if it only describes an arabesque, the soul is missing and the writing dies."

"Film will only become an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper."

"After the writer’s death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter."

"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."

"An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture."

"The trouble about the Académie is that by the time they get around to electing us to a seat, we really need a bed."

"We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?"

"What is history after all? History is facts which become lies in the end; legends are lies which become history in the end."

"The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed."

"Poetry is indispensable — if I only knew what for."

"Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time."

"A film is a petrified fountain of thought."

"The ear disapproves but tolerates certain musical pieces; transfer them into the domain of our nose, and we will be forced to flee."

"You’ve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive."

"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."

"That pile of paper on his left side went on living like the watch on a dead soldier’s wrist."

"I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another."

"Don’t for a moment believe He was killing the young; He was costuming angels."

"He has the manner of a giant with the look of a child, a lazy activeness, a mad wisdom, a solitude encompassing the world."

"There are too many souls of wood not to love those wooden characters who do indeed have a soul."

"The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, they finish by loading honors on your head."

"The skin of all of us is responsive to gypsy songs and military marches."

"Mirrors would do well to reflect a little more before sending back images."

"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."

"What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you."

"Art is science made clear."

"One must be a living man and a posthumous artist."

"An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original."

"All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it."

"Mettez un lieu commun en place, nettoyez-le, frottez-le, éclairez-le de telle sorte qu'il frappe avec sa jeunesse et avec la même fraîcheur, le même jet qu'il avait à sa source, vous ferez œuvre de poète. Tout le reste est littérature."