Quotes by Jean Cocteau

Paris, however―because of her purely fortuitous beauty, because of the old things which have become a part of her, because of her entanglement of buildings and tenements―Paris yields herself in discovery as an attic beloved in our childhood gave up its secrets.

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

plantitIt will sproutBut forget about the rustic festivitiesFor the explosive word falls harmlessly eternal throughthe compact generations

I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.

Be yourself. The world worships the original.

At all costs the true world of childhood must prevail, must be restored; that world whose momentous, heroic, mysterious quality is fed on airy nothings, whose substance is so ill-fitted to withstand the brutal touch of adult inquisition.

To be moved confuses the soul. One cannot convey these kinds of memories any more than the events of a dream......if I have complained too long, it is because my memory, no longer having any fixed abode, has to carry its luggage with it.

One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it.

Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.

The smell of opium is the least stupid smell in the world.

The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.

Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.

Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time. Fashion on the other hand produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.

Certainly I believe in luck. How else do you explain the success of those you dont like?

One sits down first one thinks afterwards.

The joy of the young is to disobey - but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders.

Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death.

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

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

All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.