Danh ngôn của Jean Cocteau (Sứ mệnh: 8)

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 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.
I believe in luck: how else can you explain the success of those you dislike?
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.
Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.
You've never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive.
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.
An artist cannot speak about his art any more than a plant can discuss horticulture.
The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up.
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we don't like?
All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
Life is a horizontal fall.
Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
The extreme limit of wisdom, that's what the public calls madness.
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.
Poetry is indispensable - if I only knew what for.
A film is a petrified fountain of thought.
Art is not a pastime but a priesthood.
Film will only became an art when its materials are as inexpensive as pencil and paper.
I love cats because I enjoy my home; and little by little, they become its visible soul.
I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.