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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.

Jean Cocteau

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Jean Cocteau
Age: 74 †
Born: 1889
Born: July 5
Died: 1963
Died: October 11
Actor
Composer
Designer
Film Director
Illustrator
Librettist
Novelist
Painter
Photographer
Playwright
Poet
Postage Stamp Designer
Prosaist
Clément Eugène Jean Pierre Cocteau
Zhan Kokto
Eugène Jean Maurice Cocteau
Eugene Jean Maurice Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
Ideas
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Element
Always
Design
Event
Life
Events
Actual
Preconceived
Philosophy
Simplicity
Bewildered
Belief
Bear
Tragedies
History
Tragedy
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Art
Relation
Bizarre
Seems
Bears
Inherent

More quotes by Jean Cocteau

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The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.
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Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time.
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Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo
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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.
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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.
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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.
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Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.
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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.
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Poetry is indispensable - if I only knew what for.
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The poet is at the disposal of the night. His role is humble, he must clean house and await its due visitation.
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I love cats because I enjoy my home and little by little, they become its visible soul.
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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.
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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.
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I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
Jean Cocteau
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Stupidity is always astounding, no matter how often one encounters it.
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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!
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Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
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Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
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The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.
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The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
Jean Cocteau