87 quotes
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 poet’s job. The rest is literature.
A Call to Order (1926)
Do not take up cause against the inaccuracies printed about you. They are your protection.
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
If a hermit lives in a state of ecstasy, his lack of comfort becomes the height of comfort. He must relinquish it.
Opium (1929)
Do as the beautiful woman: see to your figure and your petticoats. Though, of course, I am not speaking literally.
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
An original artist is unable to copy. So he has only to copy in order to be original.
Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)
Expect neither reward nor beatitude. Return noble waves for ignoble.
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)
Compromise yourself. Obscure your own trail.
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
Accuracy is vexing to a crowd of would-be fantasizers. Hasn't our age coined the term "escapism," when in fact the only way to escape oneself is to allow oneself to be invaded?
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
The ultimate politeness in art consists of speaking only to those who are able to uncover and measure its relationships. Anything else is symbolic, and symbolism is merely transcendental imagery.
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
It insists on living its own life. It becomes the pretext for a thousand misunderstandings that go by the name of glory...
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
Man seeks to escape himself in myth, and does so by any means at his disposal... unnable to withdraw into himself, he disguises himself.
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
Be a mere assistant to your unconscious. Do only half the work. The rest will do itself.
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
One is either judge or accused. The judge sits, the accused stands. Live on your feet.
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
Victor Hugo was a madman who thought he was Victor Hugo.
Opium (1929)
Be helpful, even if it compromises you.
Diary of an Unknown (1988)
Look out! Be on your guard, because alone of all the arts, music moves all around you.
Le Coq et l’Arlequin (1918)
Commissions suit me. They set limits. Jean Marais dared me to write play in which he would not speak in the first act, would weep for joy in the second and in the last would fall backward down a flight of stairs.
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.
A car can massage organs which no masseur can reach. It is the one remedy for the disorders of the great sympathetic nervous system. … The craving for opium can be endured in a car.
Opium (1929)