Jean Cocteau

Jean Cocteau

Poet, Novelist, Playwright

Jean Cocteau was a French poet, playwright, and filmmaker known for his innovative works that blend art and emotion, particularly in 'Les Enfants Terribles.'

Art Men Reality Poetry Lying Mirrors
Born
July 5, 1889
Died
October 11, 1963
Quotes
215
Rank
#144

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Jean Cocteau quotes (page 10 of 11)

215 quotes — follow a thought to its full quote page.

Jean Cocteau Poet, Novelist, Playwright
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"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."

Dream Children Believe
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"What is style? For many people, a very complicated way of saying very simple things. According to us, a very simple way of saying very complicated things."

Simple People Style
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"How our old friend [Michelangelo] of the Sistine would have loved to photograph his workers, perched on the fragile planks. Dali was right to say Leonardo only worked from photographs."

Old Friends Photograph Leonardo
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"He has the manner of a giant with the look of a child, a lazy activeness, a mad wisdom, a solitude encompassing the world."

Children Mad Solitude
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"He who is affected by an insult is infected by it."

Insult Affected
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"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!"

Stars Axes Blue
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"Find first, seek later."

Firsts
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"Perhaps I know to what extent I can go too far."

Knows I Can
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"The ultimate politeness in art consists of speaking only to those who are able to uncover and measure its relationships. Anything else is symbolic, and symbolism is merely transcendental imagery."

Art Symbolism Able
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"And history becomes legend and legend becomes history."

History Legends
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"One sits down first; one thinks afterwards."

Time Thinking Firsts
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"You are always concentrated on the inner thing. The moment one becomes aware of the crowd, performs for the crowd, it is spectacle."

Crowds Moments
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"The audience bursts into laughter. With the tragic gag I don't expect the audience to laugh (if they do, I have failed) but I expect a black silence from them that is almost as violent: as laughter."

Laughter Silence Black
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"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."

Friendship Cutting Preservation
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"The only work of art which succeeds is that which fails."

Success Art Succeed
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"We only serve as a model for the portrait of our fame."

Portraits Fame Models
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"I want the kind of readers who remain children at any cost. I can tell them at a glance: loyalty to that first enchantment guards better than any cosmetic; than any diet, against the insults of age. But alas for such readers, who would huddle safe and sound in the asylum of their credulous enchantment as if in the womb-our enervating century offends them by its chaos, its fidgets of light and space, the host of its excuses for dividing , for rending oneself from others and from oneself."

Loyalty Children Light
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"Nothing is more intriguing than a still photograph in the middle of a motion picture... Just as an accident is a cry changed into silence and not a silence after a cry, photography is speed rendered motionless."

Photography Silence Cry
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