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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
Seems
Bears
Inherent
Ideas
Elements
Element
Always
Design
Event
Life
Events
Actual
Preconceived
Philosophy
Simplicity
Bewildered
Belief
Bear
Tragedies
History
Tragedy
Grandeur
Art
Relation
Bizarre

More quotes by Jean Cocteau

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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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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.
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The poet Paul Éluard says that to understand my film version of Beauty and the Beast, you must love your dog more than your car.
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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.
Jean Cocteau
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And history becomes legend and legend becomes history.
Jean Cocteau
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Poets don't draw. They unravel their handwriting and then tie it up again, but differently.
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The prettiest dresses are worn to be taken off.
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The composer opens the cage door for arithmetic, the draftsman gives geometry its freedom.
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There's no such thing as love only proof of love.
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The joy of the young is to disobey
Jean Cocteau
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Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
Jean Cocteau
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Cultivate everything the critics hated in your first work - that's what makes you unique.
Jean Cocteau
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To be audacious with tact, you have to know to what point you can go too far.
Jean Cocteau
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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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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.
Jean Cocteau
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Poetry is a religion without hope, but its martyrs guarantee the eternal truth of its dogma.
Jean Cocteau
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Fight any instinct to be humorless, for humorlessness is the worst of all absurdities.
Jean Cocteau
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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.
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Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.
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What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show.
Jean Cocteau