Jean Cocteau - Opium Quotes

4 Sourced Quotes

View all Jean Cocteau Quotes

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

If an addict who has been completely cured starts smoking again he no longer experiences the discomfort of his first addiction. There exists, therefore, outside alkaloids and habit, a sense for opium, an intangible habit which lives on, despite the recasting of the organism.... The dead drug leaves a ghost behind. At certain hours it haunts the house.

Jean Cocteau

It is difficult to live without opium after having known it because it is difficult, after knowing opium, to take earth seriously. And unless one is a saint, it is difficult to live without taking earth seriously.

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. … The craving for opium can be endured in a car.

Jean Cocteau