Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently. — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed. — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood. — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
Beauty makes one lose one's head. Poetry is born of this decapitation — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it… — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility. It insists on living its own life. — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
Poetry is a religion without hope, but its martyrs guarantee the eternal truth of its dogma. — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
“Poetry is a machine that manufactures love. Its other virtues escape me.” — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
Poetry is an ethic. By ethic I mean a secret code of behavior, a discipline constructed and conducted according to the capabilities… — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light which… — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
The poet, by composing poems, uses a language that is neither dead nor living, that few people speak, and few people understand… — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and… — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
“The purity of a revolution can last a fortnight. That is why a poet, the revolutionary of the soul, limits himself to… — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
Every poem is a coat of arms. It must be deciphered. How much blood, how many tears in exchange for these axes,… — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
The job of the poet (a job which can't be learned) consists of placing those objects of the visible world which have… — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
Poetry is a religion without hope. The poet exhausts himself in its service, knowing that, in the long run, a masterpiece is… — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
“Art according to art! Love according to love! This is taking the salt away from Heaven. Do you think Our Savior tries… — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
“It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious... Poetry is a religion without hope.” — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses. — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
The poet Paul Éluard says that to understand my film version of Beauty and the Beast, you must love your dog more… — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
The poet is at the disposal of the night. His role is humble, he must clean house and await its due visitation. — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie. — Jean Cocteau Copy Share Image
Love is mainly an affair of short spasms. If these spasms disappoint us, love dies. It is very seldom that it weathers the experience… — Jean Cocteau Copy Share
I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike? — Jean Cocteau Copy Share
Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities. — Jean Cocteau Copy Share
Lying is the only art form that the public sanctions and instinctively prefers to reality. — Jean Cocteau Copy Share
My method is simple: not to bother about poetry. It must come of its own accord. Merely whispering its name drives it away. — Jean Cocteau Copy Share
If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed. — Jean Cocteau Copy Share
Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live. — Jean Cocteau Copy Share
