328 Quotes by Jean Cocteau

I have not looked at a newspaper in twenty years; if one is brought into the room, I flee. This is not because I am indifferent but because one cannot follow every road.

The eyes of the dead are closed gently; we also have to open gently the eyes of the living.

Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time.

Vivre est une chute horizontale. Life is a horizontal fall.

I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.

Be a mere assistant to your unconscious. Do only half the work. The rest will do itself.

It was the East that should have sent us missionaries.

My little Renoirs. Matisse describes having seen Renoir make these tiny canvases. When he had finished working, he would use up the color left in his brushes on them.

In exiling myself I am not exiling a monster, but a man whom society will not allow to live, since it considers one of the mysterious cogs in God's masterpiece to be a mistake.