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Commissions Suit Me. They Set Limits. Jean Marais Dared Me To Write Play In Which He Would Not Speak In The First Act, Would Weep For Joy In The Second And In The Last Would Fall Backward Down A Flight Of Stairs.

-Jean Cocteau

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Commissions Suit Me. They

Jean Cocteau

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Commissions Suit Me. They Set Limits. Jean Marais Dared Me To Write Play In Which He Would Not Speak In The First Act, Would Weep For Joy In The Second And In The Last Would Fall Backward Down A Flight Of Stairs.

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A Prig Always Finds A Last Refuge In Responsibility.

The Art Of Genius Is Knowing How Far Out Is Too Far.

You've Never Seen Death? Look In The Mirror Every Day And You Will See It Like Bees Working In A Glass Hive.

Alas! I Do Not Believe That Inspiration Falls From Heaven. Think It Rather The Result Of A Profound Indolence.

There's No Such Thing As Love; Only Proof Of Love.

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 Job Of The Poet (a Job Which Can't Be Learned) Consists Of Placing Those Objects Of The Visible World Which Have Become Invisible Due To The Glue Of Habit, In An Unusual Position Which Strikes The Soul And Gives Them A Tragic Force.

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.

We Must Believe In Luck. For How Else Can We Explain The Success Of Those We Don't Like?

Poetry Is An Ethic. By Ethic I Mean A Secret Code Of Behavior, A Discipline Constructed And Conducted According To The Capabilities Of A Man Who Rejects The Falsifications Of The Categorical Imperative.

A Film Is A Petrified Fountain Of Thought.

I Have Seafoam In My Veins, I Understand The Language Of Waves.

Look Out! Be On Your Guard, Because Alone Of All The Arts, Music Moves All Around You.

I Know That Poetry Is Indispensable, But To What I Could Not Say.

To Be Audacious With Tact, You Have To Know To What Point You Can Go Too Far.

He Has The Manner Of A Giant With The Look Of A Child, A Lazy Activeness, A Mad Wisdom, A Solitude Encompassing The World.

Mirrors Should Think Longer Before They Reflect.

Nothing Ever Gets Anywhere. The Earth Keeps Turning Round And Gets Nowhere. The Moment Is The Only Thing That Counts.

Past Present Future

Poetry, Being Elegance Itself, Cannot Hope To Achieve Visibility... It Insists On Living Its Own Life.

I Have Never Felt Any Connection With My Family. There Isi Must Say Simplysomething In Me That Is Not In My Family. That Was Not Visible In My Father Or Mother. I Do Not Know Its Origin.

I Only Fear The Death Of Others. For Me, True Death Is That Of The People I Love

Since It's Now Fashionable To Laugh At The Conservative French Academy, I Have Remained A Rebel By Joining It.

The Preservation Of Friendship Is Seen As Opportunism. You Are Required To Be In One Camp Or The Other. You Are Enjoined To Cut Your Heartstrings If They Extend Across The Barricade.

Be A Constant Outrage To Modesty There Is Nothing To Fear: Modesty Is Exercised Only Among The Blind.

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.

Mirrors Would Do Well To Reflect A Little More Before Sending Back Images.

Take A Commonplace, Clean It And Polish It, Light It So That It Produces The Same Effect Of Youth And Freshness And Originality And Spontaneity As It Did Originally, And You Have Done A Poet's Job. The Rest Is Literature.

The Artist Is A Kind Of Prison From Which The Works Of Art Escape.

After You Have Written A Thing And You Reread It, There Is Always The Temptation To Fix It Up, To Improve It, To Remove Its Poison, Blunt Its Sting.

He Who Is Affected By An Insult Is Infected By It.

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.

Poetry Is A Religion Without Hope. The Poet Exhausts Himself In Its Service, Knowing That, In The Long Run, A Masterpiece Is Nothing But The Performance Of A Trained Dog On Very Shaky Ground.

Mirrors Should Reflect A Little Before Throwing Back Images.

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.

Everyone's Pet Is The Most Outstanding. This Begets Mutual Blindness.

The Worst Tragedy For A Poet Is To Be Admired Through Being Misunderstood.

French People Are Italian People In A Bad Mood.

We Shelter An Angel Within Us. We Must Be The Guardians Of That Angel.

I Succeeded In Bewitching A Fair Number And In Being Intoxicated With My Mistakes.

A True Photographer Is As Rare As A True Poet Or A True Painter.

Cultivate Everything The Critics Hated In Your First Work - That's What Makes You Unique.

There Is Always A Period When A Man With A Beard Shaves It Off. This Period Does Not Last. He Returns Headlong To His Beard.

Since These Mysteries Exceed My Grasp, I Shall Pretend To Have Organized Them.

Style Is A Simple Way Of Saying Complicated Things.

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.

The Cinema Is Death At Work.

I Am Happy To Exhibit, But Not To Put Myself On Exhibition.

Appreciation Of Art Is A Moral Erection, Otherwise Mere Dilettantism.

The Actual Tragedies Of Life Bear No Relation To One's Preconceived Ideas. In The Event, One Is Always Bewildered By Their Simplicity, Their Grandeur Of Design, And By That Element Of The Bizarre Which Seems Inherent In Them.

The Poet Doesn't Invent. He Listens.

The Public Only Takes Up Yesterday As A Stick To Beat Today.

The Public Is Never Pleased With What We Do, Wanting Always A Copy Of What We Have Done.

Do Not Fear Being Ridiculous In Relation To The Ridiculous.

And Now I Have To Confess The Unpardonable And The Scandalous. I Am A Happy Man. And I Am Going To Tell You The Secret Of My Happiness. It Is Quite Simple. I Love Mankind. I Love Love. I Hate Hate. I Try To Understand And Accept.

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.

The Poet Is At The Disposal Of The Night. His Role Is Humble, He Must Clean House And Await Its Due Visitation.

The Only Way To Kill Death Is Through Photography.

Whatever The Public Blames You For, Cultivate It; It Is Yourself.

The Only Work Of Art Which Succeeds Is That Which Fails.

Understand That Some Of Your Enemies Are Amongst Your Best Friends.

Your Best Friend

Be A Mere Assistant To Your Unconscious. Do Only Half The Work. The Rest Will Do Itself.

Victor Hugo Was A Madman Who Thought He Was Victor Hugo

How Our Old Friend [michelangelo] Of The Sistine Would Have Loved To Photograph His Workers, Perched On The Fragile Planks. Dali Was Right To Say Leonardo Only Worked From Photographs.

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.

Art Is Not A Pastime But A Priesthood.

A Car Can Massage Organs Which No Masseur Can Reach. It Is The One Remedy For The Disorders Of The Great Sympathetic Nervous System.

A Child's Reaction To This Type Of Calamity Is Twofold And Extreme. Not Knowing How Deeply, Powerfully, Life Drops Anchor Into Its Vast Sources Of Recuperation, He Is Bound To Envisage, At Once, The Very Worst; Yet At The Same Time, Because Of His Inability To Imagine Death, The Worst Remains Totally Unreal To Him. Gerard Went On Repeating: "paul's Dying; Paul's Going To Die"' But He Did Not Believe It. Paul's Death Would Be Part Of The Dream, A Dream Of Snow, Of Journeying Forever.

In Paris, Everybody Wants To Be An Actor; Nobody Is Content To Be A Spectator.

Love Is Mainly An Affair Of Short Spasms. If These Spasms Disappoint Us, Love Dies. It Is Very Seldom That It Weathers The Experience And Becomes Friendship.

Children And Lunatics Cut The Gordian Knot Which The Poet Spends His Life Patiently Trying To Untie.

When I Write, I Disturb. When I Show A Film, I Disturb. When I Exhibit My Painting, I Disturb, And I Disturb If I Don't. I Have A Knack For Disturbing.

Mystery Has Its Own Mysteries, And There Are Gods Above Gods. We Have Ours, They Have Theirs. That Is What's Known As Infinity.

Poetry Is Indispensable - If I Only Knew What For.

We Only Serve As A Model For The Portrait Of Our Fame.

The Ultimate Politeness In Art Consists Of Speaking Only To Those Who Are Able To Uncover And Measure Its Relationships. Anything Else Is Symbolic, And Symbolism Is Merely Transcendental Imagery.

The Ear Disapproves But Tolerates Certain Musical Pieces; Transfer Them Into The Domain Of Our Nose, And We Will Be Forced To Flee.

Youth Is Certain What It Rejects Before It Knows What It Will Accept.

I Have A Piece Of Great And Sad News To Tell You: I Am Dead.

People Seek Escape In Myth By Any Means At Their Disposal, Including Drugs, Alcohol, Meditation, And Lies.

I Feel Myself Inhabited By A Force Or Being -- Very Little Known To Me. It Gives The Orders; I Follow.

The Speed Of A Runaway Horse Counts For Nothing.

Silence Moves Faster When It's Going Backward.

The Reward Of Art Is Not Fame Or Success But Intoxication: That Is Why So Many Bad Artists Are Unable To Give It Up.

Congratulations

Poetry Is A Religion Without Hope, But Its Martyrs Guarantee The Eternal Truth Of Its Dogma.

There Are Too Many Souls Of Wood Not To Love Those Wooden Characters Who Do Indeed Have A Soul.

Childhood Knows What It Wants - To Leave Childhood Behind.

I Love Cats Because I Enjoy My Home; And Little By Little, They Become Its Visible Soul.

Living Is A Horizontal Fall.

Keep Braiding One's Wavelengths Back Into Oneself. That Way They Gain All The More External Power And Surround Us With A Huge Affective And Protective Zone. Don't Talk About This. Never Talk About Our Secret Methods. If We Talk About Them, They Stop Working.

All Good Music Resembles Something. Good Music Stirs By Its Mysterious Resemblance To The Objects And Feelings Which Motivated It.

The Runner Stopped Dead, Lost His Balance, Froze In One Of Those Violent Attitudes In Which The Photographers Petrify Living Reality.

Celebrity: I Picture Myself As A Marble Bust With Legs To Run Everywhere.

See Your Disappointments As Good Fortune. One Plan's Deflation Is Another's Inflation.

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.

The Ability To Laugh Heartily Is The Sign Of A Healthy Soul.

The Hot Hall Full Of Painted Girls And American Soldiers Is A Saloon In Some Western Film. This Noise Drenches Us, Wakens Us To Do Something Else. It Shows Us A Lost Path.

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.

Art Is A Marriage Of The Conscious And The Unconscious.

Without Resistance You Can Do Nothing

Poetry Is A Religion With No Hope.

May The Devil Himself Splatter You With Dung.

If An Addict Who Has Been Completely Cured Starts Smoking Again He No Longer Experiences The Discomfort Of His First Addiction. There Exists, Therefore, Outside Alkaloids And Habit, A Sense For Opium, An Intangible Habit Which Lives On, Despite The Recasting Of The Organism. The Dead Drug Leaves A Ghost Behind. At Certain Hours It Haunts The House.

Good Music Resembles Something. It Resembles The Composer.

Emotion Resulting From A Work Of Art Is Only Of Value When It Is Not Obtained By Sentimental Blackmail.

Poets Don't Draw. They Unravel Their Handwriting And Then Tie It Up Again, But Differently.

Every Day In The Mirror I Watch Death At Work.

The Audience Bursts Into Laughter. With The Tragic Gag I Don't Expect The Audience To Laugh (if They Do, I Have Failed) But I Expect A Black Silence From Them That Is Almost As Violent: As Laughter.

What Is Line? It Is Life. A Line Must Live At Each Point Along Its Course In Such A Way That The Artist's Presence Makes Itself Felt Above That Of The Model... With The Writer, Line Takes Precedence Over Form And Content. It Runs Through The Words He Assembles. It Strikes A Continuous Note Unperceived By Ear Or Eye. It Is, In A Way, The Soul's Style, And If The Line Ceases To Have A Life Of Its Own, If It Only Describes An Arabesque, The Soul Is Missing And The Writing Dies.

I've Always Preferred Mythology To History. History Is Truth That Becomes An Illusion. Mythology Is An Illusion That Becomes Reality.

Lying Is The Only Art Form That The Public Sanctions And Instinctively Prefers To Reality.

Respect Movements, Flee Schools.

Not Only Should You Not Accept A Prize. You Should Not Try To Deserve One Either.

Anything Of Any Importance Cannot Help But Be Unrecognizable, Since It Bears No Resemblance To Anything Already Known.

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.

It Was The East That Should Have Sent Us Missionaries.

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.

Stupidity Is Always Astounding, No Matter How Often One Encounters It.

The Instinct Of Nearly All Societies Is To Lock Up Anybody Who Is Truly Free. First, Society Begins By Trying To Beat You Up. If This Fails, They Try To Poison You. If This Fails Too, The Finish By Loading Honors On Your Head.

A True Poet Does Not Bother To Be Poetical. Nor Does A Nursery Gardener Scent His Roses.

Compromise Yourself. Obscure Your Own Trail.

My Only Politics Have Been Friendship.

Fight Any Instinct To Be Humorless, For Humorlessness Is The Worst Of All Absurdities.

I Have Lost My Seven Best Friends, Which Is To Say God Has Had Mercy On Me Seven Times Without Realizing It. He Lent A Friendship, Took It From Me, Sent Me Another.

Commissions Suit Me. They Set Limits. Jean Marais Dared Me To Write Play In Which He Would Not Speak In The First Act, Would Weep For Joy In The Second And In The Last Would Fall Backward Down A Flight Of Stairs.

And History Becomes Legend And Legend Becomes History.

The Poet Is A Liar Who Always Speaks The Truth.

Artists Can No More Speak About Their Work, Than Plants Can Speak About Horticulture.

What Uniform Can I Wear To Hide My Heavy Heart? It Is Too Heavy. It Will Always Show.

Every Poem Is A Coat Of Arms. It Must Be Deciphered. How Much Blood, How Many Tears In Exchange For These Axes, These Muzzles, These Unicorns, These Torches, These Towers, These Martlets, These Seedlings Of Stars And These Fields Of Blue!

There Are Truths Which One Can Only Say After Having Won The Right To Say Them.

My Method Is Simple: Not To Bother About Poetry. It Must Come Of Its Own Accord. Merely Whispering Its Name Drives It Away.

Wealth Is An Inborn Attitude Of Mind, Like Poverty. The Pauper Who Has Made His Pile May Flaunt His Spoils, But Cannot Wear Them Plausibly.

Watch Yourself All Your Life In A Mirror And You'll See Death At Work Like Bees In A Glass Hive.

It Is Not I Who Become Addicted, It Is My Body.

Overcoming Addiction

Picasso Said That Everything Is A Miracle, That It's A Miracle That We Don't Dissolve In Our Baths.

Art Is Science Made Flesh.

The Louvre Is A Morgue; You Go There To Identify Your Friends.

Lack Of Manners Is The Sign Of A Hero.

The Dead Drug Leaves A Ghost Behind. At Certain Hours It Haunts The House.

Don't For A Moment Believe He Was Killing The Young; He Was Costuming Angels.

The Poet Never Asks For Admiration; He Wants To Be Believed.

One Sits Down First; One Thinks Afterwards.

Beauty Makes One Lose One's Head. Poetry Is Born Of This Decapitation

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.

Continue Reading Proust. His Magnificent Intelligence Is Particularly Fond Of Describing Stupidity. Which Is Ultimately Exhausting.

What The Public Criticizes In You, Cultivate. It Is You.

True Realism Consists In Revealing The Surprising Things Which Habit Keeps Covered And Prevents Us From Seeing.

Never Do What A Specialist Can Do Better. Discover Your Own Specialty. Do Not Despair If Your Specialty Appears To Be More Delicate, A Lesser Thing. Make Up In Finesse What You Lose In Force.

Find First, Seek Later.

What Is Style? For Many People, A Very Complicated Way Of Saying Very Simple Things. According To Us, A Very Simple Way Of Saying Very Complicated Things.

Vivre Est Une Chute Horizontale. Life Is A Horizontal Fall.

A Picture Is Not A Window...an Abstract Refers To No Reality But Its Own.

One Should Always Talk Well About Oneself! The Word Spreads Around And In The End, Noone Remembers Where It Started

After The Writer's Death, Reading His Journal Is Like Receiving A Long Letter.

The Skin Of All Of Us Is Responsive To Gypsy Songs And Military Marches.

The Smell Of Opium Is The Least Stupid Smell In The World.

There Are Poets And There Are Grownups.

Here I Am Trying To Live, Or Rather, I Am Trying To Teach The Death Within Me How To Live.

It Is Excruciating To Be An Unbeliever With A Spirit That Is Deeply Religious.

Film Will Only Became An Art When Its Materials Are As Inexpensive As Pencil And Paper.

The Spirit Of Creation Is The Spirit Of Contradiction. It Is The Breakthrough Of Appearances Toward An Unknown Reality.

Nothing Is More Intriguing Than A Still Photograph In The Middle Of A Motion Picture... Just As An Accident Is A Cry Changed Into Silence And Not A Silence After A Cry, Photography Is Speed Rendered Motionless.

Man Seeks To Escape Himself In Myth, And Does So By Any Means At His Disposal. Drugs, Alcohol, Or Lies. Unable To Withdraw Into Himself, He Disguises Himself. Lies And Inaccuracy Give Him A Few Moments Of Comfort.

I Am Burning Myself Up And Will Always Do So.

If A Poet Has A Dream, It Is Not Of Becoming Famous, But Of Being Believed.

It Is Not Inspiration; It Is Expiration.

It Is Difficult To Live Without Opium After Having Known It Because It Is Difficult, After Knowing Opium, To Take Earth Seriously. And Unless One Is A Saint, It Is Difficult To Live Without Taking Earth Seriously.

When A Work Appears To Be Ahead Of Its Time, It Is Only The Time That Is Behind The Work.

Funny Basketball

An Artist Cannot Speak About His Art Any More Than A Plant Can Discuss Horticulture.

History Is A Combination Of Reality And Lies. The Reality Of History Becomes A Lie. The Unreality Of The Fable Becomes The Truth.

Such Is The Role Of Poetry. It Unveils, In The Strict Sense Of The Word. It Lays Bare, Under A Light Which Shakes Off Torpor, The Surprising Things Which Surround Us And Which Our Senses Record Mechanically.

One Is Either Judge Or Accused. The Judge Sits, The Accused Stands. Live On Your Feet.

You Have Comfort. You Don't Have Luxury. And Don't Tell Me That Money Plays A Part. The Luxury I Advocate Has Nothing To Do With Money. It Cannot Be Bought. It Is The Reward Of Those Who Have No Fear Or Discomfort.

I Want The Kind Of Readers Who Remain Children At Any Cost. I Can Tell Them At A Glance: Loyalty To That First Enchantment Guards Better Than Any Cosmetic; Than Any Diet, Against The Insults Of Age. But Alas For Such Readers, Who Would Huddle Safe And Sound In The Asylum Of Their Credulous Enchantment As If In The Womb-our Enervating Century Offends Them By Its Chaos, Its Fidgets Of Light And Space, The Host Of Its Excuses For Dividing , For Rending Oneself From Others And From Oneself.

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'm Not Willing Just To Be Tolerated. That Wounds My Love Of Love And Of Liberty.

The Joy Of The Young Is To Disobey

Perhaps I Know To What Extent I Can Go Too Far.

The Composer Opens The Cage Door For Arithmetic, The Draftsman Gives Geometry Its Freedom.

The Joy Of Youth Is To Disobey; But The Trouble Is That There Are No Longer Any Orders.

Elegance Ceases To Exist When It Is Noticed.

Art Produces Ugly Things Which Frequently Become Beautiful With Time.

The Artist Must Know How Far To Go Too Far.

Art Is Science In The Flesh.

You Are Always Concentrated On The Inner Thing. The Moment One Becomes Aware Of The Crowd, Performs For The Crowd, It Is Spectacle.

Do As The Beautiful Woman: See To Your Figure And Your Petticoats. Though, Of Course, I Am Not Speaking Literally.

Beautiful Women

Catastrophe, Riots, Factories Blowing Up, Armies In Flight, Flood - The Ear Can Detect A Whole Apocalypse In The Starry Night Of The Human Body.

Beauty Cannot Be Recognized With A Cursory Glance.

One Must Be A Living Man And A Posthumous Artist.

An Original Artist Is Unable To Copy. So He Has Only To Copy In Order To Be Original.

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.

Tact In Audacity Is Knowing How Far You Can Go Without Going Too Far.

All Spiritual Journeys Are Martyrdoms

The Prettiest Dresses Are Worn To Be Taken Off.

A Little Too Much Is Just Enough For Me.

Statues To Great Men Are Made Of The Stones Thrown At Them In Their Lifetime.

What Is History After All? History Is Facts Which Become Lies In The End.

Expect Neither Reward Nor Beatitude. Return Noble Waves For Ignoble.

We Are In A Period Of Such Individualism That One No Longer Speaks Of Disciples; One Speaks Of Thieves.

Whatever The World Condemns You For, Make It Your Own. It Is Yourself.

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