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
The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
Being tactful in audacity is knowing how far one can go to far.
The essential in daring is to know how far one can go too far
Tact consists in knowing how far to go too far
A good upbringing consists in hiding how much you think of yourself, and how little you think of others.
Tact in audacity consists in knowing how far we may go too far.
Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Vistor Hugo.
When a work of art appears to be in advance of its period, it is really the period that has lagged behind the work of art
Poetry is a religion with no hope.
When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
Enough of clouds, waves, aquariums, water-sprites and nocturnal scents; what we need is music of the earth, everyday music..music one can live in like a house.
How our old friend [Michelangelo] of the Sistine would have loved to photograph his workers, perched on the fragile planks. Dali was right to say Leonardo only worked from photographs.
It seems to me that invisibility is the required provision of elegance. Elegance ceases to exist when it is noticed.
The public only takes up yesterday as a stick to beat today.