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The only work of art which succeeds is that which fails.

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
Success
Art
Work
Succeeds
Fails
Succeed
Failing

More quotes by Jean Cocteau

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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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A prig always finds a last refuge in responsibility.
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After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.
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Understand that some of your enemies are amongst your best friends.
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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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True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.
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I am burning myself up and will always do so.
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Statues to great men are made of the stones thrown at them in their lifetime.
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And now I have to confess the unpardonable and the scandalous. I am a happy man. And I am going to tell you the secret of my happiness. It is quite simple. I love mankind. I love love. I hate hate. I try to understand and accept.
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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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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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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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Every day in the mirror I watch death at work.
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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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Perhaps I know to what extent I can go too far.
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Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
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A man's truest self realizations might require him, above all, to learn to close his eyes: to let himself be taken unawares, to follow his dark angel, to risk his illegal instincts.
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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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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.
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French people are Italian people in a bad mood.
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