Jean Cocteau Quotes

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

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.

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.

J'exige un vrai bonheur, un vrai amour, une vraie contrée où le soleil alterne avec la lune, où les saisons se déroulent en ordre, où de vrais arbres portent de vrais fruits, où de vrais poissons habitent les rivières, et de vrais oiseaux le ciel, où la vrai neige découvre de vraies fleurs, où tout sort est vrai, vrai, véritable. J’en ai assez de cette lumière morne, de ces campagnes stériles, sans jour, sans nuit, où ne survivent que les bêtes féroces et rapaces, où les lois de la nature ne fonctionnent pas.

My hair has always grown in all directions and my teeth too and my beard. My nerves and my soul must surely grow in the same way. That is what makes me incomprehensible to those who grow all in one direction and are incapable of imagining a hay-stack. It is this that baffles those who could rid me of this legendary leprosy. They do not know how to take me.
This organic disorder is a safeguard for me because it keeps the thoughtless at distance. I also get certain advantages from it. It gives me diversity, contrast, a quickness in leaning to one side or the other as this or that object invites me, and in regaining my balance.

Children believe what we tell them. They have complete faith in us. They believe that a rose plucked from a garden can plunge a family into conflict. They believe that the hands of a human beast will smoke when he slays a victim, and that this will cause him shame when a young maiden takes up residence in his home. They believe a thousand other simple things.

I ask of you a little of this childlike sympathy and, to bring us luck, let me speak four truly magic words, childhood’s “Open Sesame”:

Once upon a time…

Jeannot la bêtise des amoureux est immense, végétale, animale, astrale. Que faire? Comment te faire comprendre que je n'existe plus en dehors de toi.

The Louvre is like the morgue; one goes there to identify one’s friends.

It is, it seems, a social crime to desire solitude.

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

We only serve as a model to the portrait of our fame

По едно време, в началото, аз те ревнувах и от съня ти. Питах се: къде ли отива, когато спи? Какво вижда? А ти се усмихваше, протягаше се, затова аз започнах да мразя хората, които сънуваш. Често те будех, за да ги пропъдиш. Но ти обичаше да сънуваш и се разяряваше, че те събуждам. Не можех да понасям невъзмутимата ти физиономия.

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

A picture neither saddening nor gladdening I fear; neither beautiful nor ugly.

Regarde, spectateur, remontée à bloc, de telle sorte que le ressort se déroule avec lenteur tout le long d'une vie humaine, une des plus parfaites machines construites par les dieux infernaux pour l'anéantissement mathématique d'un mortel.