Jean Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteauwas a French writer, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. Cocteau is best known for his novel Les Enfants Terribles, and the films Blood of a Poet, Les Parents Terribles, Beauty and the Beastand Orpheus. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Yul Brynner, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, Albert Gleizes, Igor Stravinsky, Marie Laurencin, María Félix, Édith Piaf, Panama Al Brown, Colette, Jean Genet,...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth5 July 1889
CityMaisons-Laffitte, France
CountryFrance
Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.
The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
A car can massage organs which no masseur can reach. It is the one remedy for the disorders of the great sympathetic nervous system.
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.
The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.
Mirrors would do well to reflect a little more before sending back images.
I am happy to exhibit, but not to put myself on exhibition.
There are poets and there are grownups.
Beauty cannot be recognized with a cursory glance.
Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images.
The runner stopped dead, lost his balance, froze in one of those violent attitudes in which the photographers petrify living reality.