328 Quotes by Jean Cocteau

I have seafoam in my veins, I understand the language of waves.

One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.

It is not inspiration; it is expiration.

Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like - then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.

One is either judge or accused. The judge sits, the accused stands. Live on your feet.

When we awake it is the animal, the plant, that thinks in us. Primitive thought without the least disguise. We see a terrible universe, because we see clearly. A little later, intelligence introduces its impeding contrivances. It brings the little toys which man invents in order to hide the void. It is then that we think we are seeing clearly. We attribute our uneasiness to the miasmas of the brain as it passes from dream to reality.

I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?

There's no such thing as love; only proof of love.

The poet, by composing poems, uses a language that is neither dead nor living, that few people speak, and few people understand We are the servants of an unknown force that lives within us, manipulates us, and dictates this language to us.