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
Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot, which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie
I know that poetry is indispensable, but to what I could not say.
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.
Beauty makes one lose one's head. Poetry is born of this decapitation
The poet doesn't invent. He listens.
A true photographer is as rare as a true poet or a true painter.
A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
The worst tragedy for a poet is to be admired through being misunderstood.
The poet is a liar who always speaks the truth.
There are poets and there are grownups.
Poetry is indispensable --if I only knew what for.
Poetry is a religion with no hope.
If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.
Being tactful in audacity is knowing how far one can go to far.