Jean Cocteau Quotes

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.

Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.

The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.

Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.

The poet doesn't invent. He listens.

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!

I suppose the artists invented the firm breasts they put on women, and that in reality all women had flabby ones.

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

Art is science made clear.

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.

An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.

Asking an artist to talk about his work
is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.

Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.

All spiritual journeys are martyrdoms

One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree to live in it with strangers, completely cut off from our habits and friends.