Jean Cocteau

Jean Cocteau
Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteauwas a French writer, designer, playwright, artist and filmmaker. Cocteau is best known for his novel Les Enfants Terribles, and the films Blood of a Poet, Les Parents Terribles, Beauty and the Beastand Orpheus. His circle of associates, friends and lovers included Kenneth Anger, Pablo Picasso, Jean Hugo, Jean Marais, Henri Bernstein, Yul Brynner, Marlene Dietrich, Coco Chanel, Erik Satie, Albert Gleizes, Igor Stravinsky, Marie Laurencin, María Félix, Édith Piaf, Panama Al Brown, Colette, Jean Genet,...
NationalityFrench
ProfessionNovelist
Date of Birth5 July 1889
CityMaisons-Laffitte, France
CountryFrance
The artist must know how far to go too far.
One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.
Artists can no more speak about their work, than plants can speak about horticulture.
Asking an artist to talk about his work is like asking a plant to discuss horticulture.
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
Being tactful in audacity is knowing how far one can go to far.
Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Vistor Hugo.
When a work of art appears to be in advance of its period, it is really the period that has lagged behind the work of art
I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?
Tact in audacity consists in knowing how far we may go too far.
Tact consists in knowing how far to go too far
The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
I am a lie who always speaks the truth.
That pile of paper on his left side went on living like the watch on a dead soldier's wrist.