Jean Cocteau: Trending quotes

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Jean Cocteau: 246 quotes24 likes

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

Newsweek (7 April 1958)

“Poetry is indispensable — if I only knew what for.”

As quoted in The Necessity of Art (1959) by Ernst Fischer, Ch. 1

“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.”

"Le Secret Professionnel" (originally published 1922); later published in Collected Works Vol. 9 (1950)
A Call to Order (1926)

“Respect movements, flee schools.”

Diary of an Unknown (1988)

“People would say to Al Brown: "You are not a boxer. You are a dancer." He laughed at this, and won.”

Diary of an Unknown (1988)

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

Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)

“Hasten slowly. Run faster than beauty.”

Diary of an Unknown (1988)

“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.”

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.
"Le Secret Professionnel" (originally published 1922); later published in Collected Works Vol. 9 (1950)
A Call to Order (1926)

“The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.”

Cyril Connolly in The Unquiet Grave (1944; 1951), Part 2
Misattributed

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

As quoted in Geary's Guide to the World's Great Aphorists (2007) by James Geary, p. 159

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

"Visite" in Discours du Grand Sommeil (1920); later published in Collected Works Vol. 4 (1947)

“If a hermit lives in a state of ecstasy, his lack of comfort becomes the height of comfort. He must relinquish it.”

Opium (1929)

“If an addict who has been completely cured starts smoking again he no longer experiences the discomfort of his first addiction. There exists, therefore, outside alkaloids and habit, a sense for opium, an intangible habit which lives on, despite the recasting of the organism…. The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.”

Opium (1929)

“Originality consists in trying to be like everybody else — and failing.”

Raymond Radiguet, who was quoted by Cocteau in his acceptance speech to the Académie Française (October 1955)
Misattributed

“One is either judge or accused. The judge sits, the accused stands. Live on your feet.”

Diary of an Unknown (1988)

“Beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.”

Diary of an Unknown (1988), On Invisibility

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

On marionettes, as quoted in The New York Times (15 February 1987)

“Do not fear being ridiculous in relation to the ridiculous.”

Diary of an Unknown (1988)

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

On Orson Welles, as quoted in The New York Times (11 October 1985)

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

Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)