Jean Cocteau Quotes - Page 4

The poet Paul Éluard says that to understand my film version of Beauty and the Beast, you must love your dog more than your car.

There are too many souls of wood not to love those wooden characters who do indeed have a soul.

Stupidity is always astounding, no matter how often one encounters it.

Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which shakes off torpor, the surprising things which surround us and which our senses record mechanically.

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.

Art is science in the flesh.

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

Do as the beautiful woman: see to your figure and your petticoats. Though, of course, I am not speaking literally.

Silence moves faster when it's going backward.

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.

Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.

Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo

And now I have to confess the unpardonable and the scandalous. I am a happy man. And I am going to tell you the secret of my happiness. It is quite simple. I love mankind. I love love. I hate hate. I try to understand and accept.

The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.

My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away.

I'm not willing just to be tolerated. That wounds my love of love and of liberty.

Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.

Wealth is an inborn attitude of mind, like poverty. The pauper who has made his pile may flaunt his spoils, but cannot wear them plausibly.

Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work - that's what makes you unique.

Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.

One is either judge or accused. The judge sits, the accused stands. Live on your feet.

Love is mainly an affair of short spasms. If these spasms disappoint us, love dies. It is very seldom that it weathers the experience and becomes friendship.

Poetry is indispensable - if I only knew what for.

Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.

A film is a petrified fountain of thought.