Jean Cocteau (1889–1963,) fully Jean Maurice Eugène Clément Cocteau, was a French poet, playwright, novelist, designer, filmmaker, visual artist, and critic. His plays are noted for their striking blend of poetry, irony, and fantasy.
Born in Maisons-Laffitte, near Paris, Cocteau achieved success early with La Lampe d’Aladin (1909, ‘Aladdin’s Lamp,’) and exploited it. He ran the gamut of experience, first enjoying a spectacular conversion to Roman Catholicism through the Catholic philosopher Jacques Maritain.
This was followed by a scornful repudiation of Cocteau’s mentor, the use of opium, and a search for salvation through solitude. Nevertheless, he had astonishing success with whatever he touched and figured as a sponsor of Picasso, Igor Stravinsky, Giorgio de Chirico, and the group of young French composers known as Les Six. Cocteau’s work was marked by the vivacity and pyrotechnic brilliance as an actor, director, scenario writer, novelist, critic, and artist. He was elected to the Académie Française in 1955.
Significant works are his novels Le Grand Écart (1923; Miscreant, 1925,) Thomas l’imposteur (1923; Thomas the Imposter, 1925,) Les Enfants terribles (1929; Children of the Game, 1929,) and plays Les mariés de la tour Eiffel (1921; The Eiffel Tower Wedding Party, 1963,) Orphée (1926; Orpheus, 1933) and L’Aigle à deux têtes (1946; The Eagle has Two Heads, 1948.) His films include Le Sang d’un poète (1930, The Blood of a Poet,) La Belle et la Bête (1945, Beauty and the Beast,) Orphee (adapted from his play, 1949) and Le Testament d’Orphée (1960.)
More: Wikipedia • READ: Works by Jean Cocteau
If an addict who has been completely cured starts smoking again he no longer experiences the discomfort of his first addiction. There exists, therefore, outside alkaloids and habit, a sense for opium, an intangible habit which lives on, despite the recasting of the organism. The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.
—Jean Cocteau
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
Topics: Adversity
The extreme limit of wisdom—that’s what the public calls madness.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Wisdom, Madness, Mind
Nothing ever gets anywhere. The earth keeps turning round and gets nowhere. The moment is the only thing that counts.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Past and Present, Live-now
The joy of youth is to disobey; but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Obedience
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Style
True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Habits, Reality
Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other hand, produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Art, Fashion
If a hermit lives in a state of ecstasy, his lack of comfort becomes the height of comfort. He must relinquish it.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Poverty
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Imitation
Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is what’s known as infinity.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Mystery
The poet never asks for admiration; he wants to be believed.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Admiration
The Louver is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Museums
Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Dying, Death
Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal. Drugs, alcohol, or lies. Unable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself. Lies and inaccuracy give him a few moments of comfort.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Alcohol, Drugs, Illusion
If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Public, People
The instinct of nearly all societies is to lock up anybody who is truly free. First, society begins by trying to beat you up. If this fails, they try to poison you. If this fails too, the finish by loading honors on your head.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Yin, Honor, Try, Society, Body, Fail
When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Innovation, Originality
I feel that there is an angel inside me whom I am constantly shocking.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Angels
What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Criticism, Critics
You have comfort.
—Jean Cocteau
Tact is knowing how far to go too far.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Tact
One sits down first; one thinks afterwards.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: One Step at a Time
Art is science made clear.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Arts, Artists, Art
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.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Poetry, Poets
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don’t like?
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Luck
I am a lie who always speaks the truth.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Deception/Lying, Lies, Lying
One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Arts, Artists, Art
Tact in audacity consists in knowing how far we may go too far.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Tact
It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
—Jean Cocteau
Topics: Defects, The Body
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