Jean Cocteau

“Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.”

“What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.”

“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.”

“A man's truest self realizations might require him, above all, to learn to close his eyes: to let himself be taken unawares, to follow his dark angel, to risk his illegal instincts.”

“I've always preferred mythology to history. History is truth that becomes an illusion. Mythology is an illusion that becomes reality.”

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

“The prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off.”

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

“I grant you that, if you'll admit, as I do, that we are pawns of an unknown force that lives within us that dictates our actions and compels us to speak this language.”

“The poet doesn't invent. He listens. ”

“What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show.Jacques felt himself growing gloomy again. He was well aware that to live on earth a man must follow its fashions, and hearts were no longer worn.”

“Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo”

“All spiritual journeys are martyrdoms”

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

“Vivre est une chute horizontale”

“It is excruciating to be an unbeliever with a spirit that is deeply religious.”

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

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

“An artist cannot speak about his art anymore than a plant can discuss horticulture.”

“The world owes its enchantment to these curious creatures and their fancies; but its multiple complicity rejects them. Thistledown spirits, tragic, heartrending in their evanescence, they must go blowing headlong to perdition.”

“Without opium, plans, marriages and journeys appear to me just as foolish as if someone falling out of a window were to hope to make friends with the occupants of the room before which he passes.”

“Living is a horizontal fall.”

“In two weeks, despite these notes, I shall no longer believe in what I am experiencing now. One must leave behind a trace of this journey which memory forgets. One must, when this is impossible, write or draw without responding to the romantic solicitations of pain, without enjoying suffering like music, tieing a pen to one's foot if need be, helping the doctors who can learn nothing from laziness.”

“Lack of manners is the sign of a hero.”

“Il n'y a pas d'amour, il n'y a que des preuves d'amour.”

“Be yourself. The world worships the original.”

“Art is science made clear.”

“We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like? ”