Tact is knowing how far to go too far. – Jean Cocteau
Tact in audacity consists in knowing how far we may go too far. – Jean Cocteau
The Louver is a morgue; you go there to identify your friends. – Jean Cocteau
When a work appears to be ahead of its time, it is only the time that is behind the work. – Jean Cocteau
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original. – Jean Cocteau
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
Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth and freshness and originality and spontaneity as it did originally, and you have done a poets job. The rest is literature. – Jean Cocteau
A car can massage organs which no masseur can reach. It is the one remedy for the disorders of the great sympathetic nervous system. – Jean Cocteau
The joy of youth is to disobey; but the trouble is that there are no longer any orders. – Jean Cocteau
It is not I who become addicted, it is my body. – Jean Cocteau
Style is a simple way of saying complicated things. – Jean Cocteau
I love my cats because I love my home, and little by little they become its visible soul. – Jean Cocteau
If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas. – Jean Cocteau
Mystery has its own mysteries, and there are gods above gods. We have ours, they have theirs. That is whats known as infinity. – Jean Cocteau
True realism consists in revealing the surprising things which habit keeps covered and prevents us from seeing. – Jean Cocteau
The extreme limit of wisdom, thats what the public calls madness. – Jean Cocteau
We must believe in luck. For how else can we explain the success of those we dont like? – Jean Cocteau
The poet doesnt invent. He listens. – Jean Cocteau
The actual tragedies of life bear no relation to ones 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
Youve never seen death? Look in the mirror every day and you will see it like bees working in a glass hive. – Jean Cocteau
