The reward of art is not fame or success but intoxication: that is why so many bad artists are unable to give it up. – Jean Cocteau
Here I am trying to live, or rather, I am trying to teach the death within me how to live. – Jean Cocteau
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. – Jean Cocteau
Everything one does in life, even love, occurs in an express train racing toward death. To smoke opium is to get out of the train while it is still moving. It is to concern oneself with something other than life or death. – Jean Cocteau