Jean Cocteau

“Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.”

“An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.”

“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.”

“The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.”

“The day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.”

“An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.”

“Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.”

“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.”

“Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live.”

“Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.”

“After the writer's death, reading his journal is like receiving a long letter.”

“You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.”

“Life is a horizontal fall.”

“Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.”

“I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?”

“I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.”

“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.”