Quote

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.

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
Cost
Costs
Withstand
Whose
Adult
Airy
Quality
Ill
Fitted
True
Substance
Restored
Must
Mysterious
Prevail
World
Adults
Feds
Nothings
Touch
Brutal
Momentous
Childhood
Heroic
Inquisition

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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.
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The speed of a runaway horse counts for nothing.
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Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
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Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.
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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.
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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.
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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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Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail.
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It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
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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.
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The artist must know how far to go too far.
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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.
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Expect neither reward nor beatitude. Return noble waves for ignoble.
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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.
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Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time.
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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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Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.
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The spirit of creation is the spirit of contradiction. It is the breakthrough of appearances toward an unknown reality.
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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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