Jean Cocteau: Poet

Jean Cocteau was French poet, novelist, dramatist, designer, boxing manager and filmmaker. Explore interesting quotes on poet.
Jean Cocteau: 246 quotes23 likes

“The poet doesn't invent. He listens.”

Jean Cocteau

“A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.”

Jean Cocteau

A Call to Order (1926)

“Poetry is a religion without hope. The poet exhausts himself in its service, knowing that, in the long run, a masterpiece is nothing but the performance of a trained dog on very shaky ground.”

Jean Cocteau

Diary of an Unknown (1988), On Invisibility

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

Jean Cocteau

Newsweek (7 April 1958)

“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

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

Jean Cocteau

Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)

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

Jean Cocteau

Dessins (1924), as quoted by Pierre Chanel in "A Thousand Flashes of Genius", Jean Cocteau and the French Scene (1984)