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. - Jean Cocteau

[W]e have a tendency to judge others according to ourselves.

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

Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal… unnable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort, the trifling feeling of escape experienced at a masked ball. He distances himself from that which he feels and sees. He invents. He transfigures. He mythifies. He creates. He fancies himself an artist. He imitates, in his small way, the painters he claims are mad.