Jean Cocteau Quotes

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.

You’ve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.

Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what's known as infinity.

I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you don't like?

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.

I only fear the death of others. For me, true death is that of the people I love

I've always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.

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.

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

We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?

Expect neither reward nor beatitude. Return noble waves for ignoble.

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.

The map of our life is folded in such a way that we cannot see one main road across it, but as it is opened out, we are constantly seeing new side roads. We think we are choosing, and we have no choice.

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.

There is neither magic nor master's eye. Only a great deal of love and a great deal of work.