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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.

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
Saying
Simple
Many
Way
Things
People
According
Complicated
Style

More quotes by Jean Cocteau

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Appreciation of art is a moral erection, otherwise mere dilettantism.
Jean Cocteau
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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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Alas! I do not believe that inspiration falls from heaven. think it rather the result of a profound indolence.
Jean Cocteau
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The artist is a kind of prison from which the works of art escape.
Jean Cocteau
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May the devil himself splatter you with dung.
Jean Cocteau
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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.
Jean Cocteau
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The runner stopped dead, lost his balance, froze in one of those violent attitudes in which the photographers petrify living reality.
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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I have lost my seven best friends, which is to say God has had mercy on me seven times without realizing it. He lent a friendship, took it from me, sent me another.
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.
Jean Cocteau
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You are always concentrated on the inner thing. The moment one becomes aware of the crowd, performs for the crowd, it is spectacle.
Jean Cocteau
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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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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.
Jean Cocteau
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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.
Jean Cocteau
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Since it's now fashionable to laugh at the conservative French Academy, I have remained a rebel by joining it.
Jean Cocteau
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Youth can only assert itself through the conviction that its ventures surpass all others and resemble nothing.
Jean Cocteau
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I succeeded in bewitching a fair number and in being intoxicated with my mistakes.
Jean Cocteau
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All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
Jean Cocteau
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Mirrors should reflect a little before throwing back images.
Jean Cocteau
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What uniform can I wear to hide my heavy heart? It is too heavy. It will always show. Jacques felt himself growing gloomy again. He was well aware that to live on earth a man must follow its fashions, and hearts were no longer worn.
Jean Cocteau