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The course of a river is almost always disapproved of by the source.

Jean Cocteau

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Jean Cocteau
Age: 74 †
Born: 1889
Born: July 5
Died: 1963
Died: October 11
Actor
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Poet
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Clément Eugène Jean Pierre Cocteau
Zhan Kokto
Eugène Jean Maurice Cocteau
Eugene Jean Maurice Cocteau
Jean Cocteau
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I have never felt any connection with my family. There is—I must say simply—something in me that is not in my family. That was not visible in my father or mother. I do not know its origin.
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Youth is certain what it rejects before it knows what it will accept.
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Alas! I do not believe that inspiration falls from heaven. think it rather the result of a profound indolence.
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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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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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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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The art of genius is knowing how far out is too far.
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Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo
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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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The joy of youth is to disobey but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders.
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Poetry, being elegance itself, cannot hope to achieve visibility... It insists on living its own life.
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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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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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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 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.
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Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
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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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The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.
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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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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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