A child's reaction to this type of calamity is twofold and extreme. Not knowing how deeply, powerfully, life drops anchor into its vast sources of recuperation, he is bound to envisage, at once, the very worst; yet at the same time, because of his inability to imagine death, the worst remains totally unreal to him. Gerard went on repeating: "Paul's dying; Paul's going to die"' but he did not believe it. Paul's death would be part of the dream, a dream of snow, of journeying forever.

— Jean Cocteau

A film is a petrified fountain of thought.

— Jean Cocteau

All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects and feelings which motivated it.

— Jean Cocteau

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

— Jean Cocteau

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

— Jean Cocteau

Art is a marriage of the conscious and the unconscious.

— Jean Cocteau

Art is science made clear.

— Jean Cocteau

Art produces ugly things which frequently become beautiful with time. Fashion on the other hand produces beautiful things which always become ugly with time.

— Jean Cocteau

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.

— Jean Cocteau

At all costs the true world of childhood must prevail, must be restored; that world whose momentous, heroic, mysterious quality is fed on airy nothing's, whose substance is so ill-fitted to withstand the brutal touch of adult inquisition.

— Jean Cocteau