Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently. Jean Cocteau More Quotes by Jean Cocteau More Quotes From Jean Cocteau What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you. Jean Cocteau criticizecriticscriticism The poet Paul Éluard says that to understand my film version of Beauty and the Beast, you must love your dog more than your car. Jean Cocteau cardoglove-you 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. Jean Cocteau mindmayattitude Never do what a specialist can do better. Discover your own specialty. Do not despair if your specialty appears to be more delicate, a lesser thing. Make up in finesse what you lose in force. Jean Cocteau finessedespairover-you The poet doesn't invent. He listens. Jean Cocteau poeticinventionpoetry I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead. Jean Cocteau newsdyingdeath Whatever the public blames you for, cultivate it; it is yourself. Jean Cocteau lgbtblamegay I've always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality. Jean Cocteau mythologyillusionreality Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live. Jean Cocteau recoveryteachinghere-i-am Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing. Jean Cocteau ventureconvictionyouth Picasso said that everything is a miracle, that it's a miracle that we don't dissolve in our baths. Jean Cocteau bathsmiraclesaid 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. Jean Cocteau rolespoetrylight At all costs the true world of childhood must prevail, must be restored; that world whose momentous, heroic, mysterious quality is fed on airy nothings, whose substance is so ill-fitted to withstand the brutal touch of adult inquisition. Jean Cocteau childhoodqualityadults Respect movements, flee schools. Jean Cocteau movementschool In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor; nobody is content to be a spectator. Jean Cocteau parisactorswant Silence moves faster when it's going backward. Jean Cocteau fastersilencemoving When I write, I disturb. When I show a film, I disturb. When I exhibit my painting, I disturb, and I disturb if I don't. I have a knack for disturbing. Jean Cocteau knackpaintingwriting I'm not willing just to be tolerated. That wounds my love of love and of liberty. Jean Cocteau woundswillingliberty When we awake it is the animal, the plant, that thinks in us. Primitive thought without the least disguise. We see a terrible universe, because we see clearly. A little later, intelligence introduces its impeding contrivances. It brings the little toys which man invents in order to hide the void. It is then that we think we are seeing clearly. We attribute our uneasiness to the miasmas of the brain as it passes from dream to reality. Jean Cocteau dreamanimalreality Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poet's job. The rest is literature. Jean Cocteau lightdonejobs
