A picture is not a window...an abstract refers to no reality but its own. Jean Cocteau More Quotes by Jean Cocteau More Quotes From Jean Cocteau There are truths which one can only say after having won the right to say them. Jean Cocteau ugly-things virtue Beauty makes one lose one's head. Poetry is born of this decapitation Jean Cocteau loses born poetry-is Alas! I do not believe that inspiration falls from heaven. think it rather the result of a profound indolence. Jean Cocteau inspiration believe fall The composer opens the cage door for arithmetic, the draftsman gives geometry its freedom. Jean Cocteau freedom math doors It is not inspiration; it is expiration. Jean Cocteau inspiration Celebrity: I picture myself as a marble bust with legs to run everywhere. Jean Cocteau legs fame running The preservation of friendship is seen as opportunism. You are required to be in one camp or the other. You are enjoined to cut your heartstrings if they extend across the barricade. Jean Cocteau preservation cutting friendship My only politics have been friendship. Jean Cocteau has-beens friendship Keep braiding one's wavelengths back into oneself. That way they gain all the more external power and surround us with a huge affective and protective zone. Don't talk about this. Never talk about our secret methods. If we talk about them, they stop working. Jean Cocteau silence secret way The only work of art which succeeds is that which fails. Jean Cocteau succeed success art I succeeded in bewitching a fair number and in being intoxicated with my mistakes. Jean Cocteau intoxicated mistake numbers A child's reaction to this type of calamity is twofold and extreme. Not knowing how deeply, powerfully, life drops anchor into its vast sources of recuperation, he is bound to envisage, at once, the very worst; yet at the same time, because of his inability to imagine death, the worst remains totally unreal to him. Gerard went on repeating: "Paul's dying; Paul's going to die"' but he did not believe it. Paul's death would be part of the dream, a dream of snow, of journeying forever. Jean Cocteau dream believe children We only serve as a model for the portrait of our fame. Jean Cocteau portraits models fame What is history after all? History is facts which become lies in the end. Jean Cocteau lying history facts I am burning myself up and will always do so. Jean Cocteau burning Catastrophe, riots, factories blowing up, armies in flight, flood - the ear can detect a whole apocalypse in the starry night of the human body. Jean Cocteau army ears night one should always talk well about oneself! The word spreads around and in the end, noone remembers where it started Jean Cocteau ends should remember The public is never pleased with what we do, wanting always a copy of what we have done. Jean Cocteau copies done I have never felt any connection with my family. There isI must say simplysomething in me that is not in my family. That was not visible in my father or mother. I do not know its origin. Jean Cocteau connections mother father I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say. Jean Cocteau indispensable poetry-is poetry