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
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 poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.
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.
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.