Jean Cocteau: Trending quotes

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Jean Cocteau: 246 quotes24 likes

“The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.”

Source: Le Potomak : Précédé d'un Prospectus 1916

“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.”

Source: The Holy Terrors

“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.”

“The smell of opium is the least stupid smell in the world.”

1930s

“A little too much is just enough for me.”

“Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo.”

Opium (1929)

“Every poem is a coat of arms. It must be deciphered. How much blood, how many tears in exchange for these axes, these muzzles, these unicorns, these torches, these towers, these martlets, these seedlings of stars and these fields of blue!”

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

Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)

“Statues to great men are made of the stones thrown at them in their lifetime.”

“What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show.”

Source: The Holy Terrors

“Without opium, plans, marriages and journeys appear to me just as foolish as if someone falling out of a window were to hope to make friends with the occupants of the room before which he passes.”

Source: Opium: The Diary of His Cure

“one should always talk well about oneself! The word spreads around and in the end, noone remembers where it started”

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

Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)

“A man's truest self realizations might require him, above all, to learn to close his eyes: to let himself be taken unawares, to follow his dark angel, to risk his illegal instincts.”

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

Le Mystère Laïc (1928); later published in Collected Works Vol. 10 (1950)

“One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.”

Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)

“There is always a period when a man with a beard shaves it off. This period does not last. He returns headlong to his beard.”

Opium (1929)

“Allow the power of the soul to grow as flagrant as the power of sex.”

Diary of an Unknown (1988)

“Disavow anyone who provokes or accepts the extermination of a race to which he does not belong.”

Diary of an Unknown (1988)

“Do not take up cause against the inaccuracies printed about you. They are your protection.”

Diary of an Unknown (1988)