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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.

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
Light
Senses
Torpor
Things
Record
Mechanically
Role
Bare
Poetry
Strict
Records
Shakes
Roles
Surprising
Word
Surround
Sense
Lays
Unveils

More quotes by Jean Cocteau

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Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
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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.
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The cinema is death at work.
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I am burning myself up and will always do so.
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Inspiration arrived as a result of profound indolence... I awoke with a start and witnessed as from a seat in a theatre, three acts of a potentially awesome play.
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What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show.
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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.
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In Paris, everybody wants to be an actor nobody is content to be a spectator.
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Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
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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.
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Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
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Enough of clouds, waves, aquariums, water-sprites and nocturnal scents what we need is music of the earth, everyday music..music one can live in like a house.
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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.
Jean Cocteau
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A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
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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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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.
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Tact in audacity is knowing how far you can go without going too far.
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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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The artist must know how far to go too far.
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Compromise yourself. Obscure your own trail.
Jean Cocteau