Jean Cocteau

"The poet doesn't invent. He listens."

"Life is a horizontal fall."

"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."

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

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

"Every poem is a coat of arms. It must be deciphered. How much blood, how many tears in exchange for these axes, these muzzles, these unicorns, these torches, these towers, these martlets, these seedlings of stars and these fields of blue!"

"Emotion resulting from a work of art is only of value when it is not obtained by sentimental blackmail."

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

"Mirrors should think longer before they reflect."

"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."

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

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

"Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious."