Sunday, July 4, 2021

Literary Bits for July 5



Top 10 quotes from Jean Cocteau, French poet, librettist, novelist, actor, film director, and painter born on July 5, 1889:

The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.

Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.

If a poet has a dream, it is not of becoming famous, but of being believed.

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.

The poet doesn't invent. He listens.

A true poet does not bother to be poetical. Nor does a nursery gardener scent his roses.

Listen carefully to first criticisms made of your work. Note just what it is about your work that critics don't like - then cultivate it. That's the only part of your work that's individual and worth keeping.

One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.

I am a lie that always speaks the truth.

An artist cannot speak about his art anymore than a plant can discuss horticulture.

And one more:

Poetry is indispensable—if I only knew what for.

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