Jean Cocteau Quotes

I know some people might think it odd - unworthy even - for me to have written a cookbook, but I make no apologies. The U.S. poet laureate Billy Collins thought I had demeaned myself by writing poetry for Hallmark Cards, but I am the people's poet so I write for the people.

I'm so used to being misunderstood.

I don't think the critics could understand what we were doing.

Every good poet includes a critic, but the reverse is not true.

It seems like people want to blame me for everything. Whenever any issue arises, I'm said to have been involved even if I've had nothing to do with it. That's why I always focus on what I know, which is playing football, and try to be very careful with what I say because people always try and twist things.

I rarely find that things put in quotes, attributed to me, are things that I said -certainly in the context in which they are presented.

In the past I have declined to comment on my own work: because, it seems to me, a poem is what it is; because a poem is itself a definition, and to try to redefine it is to be apt to falsify it; and because the author is the person least able to consider his work objectively.

I'm surprised sometimes at how some of my actions are misinterpreted.

To a poet, it's quite ruinous to have a poem distorted, out of shape, or squeezed, shall we say, into this tiny screen. But I'm not sure big digital companies are sensitive to the needs of poets.

I always thought that poetry is the verdict that others give to a certain kind of writing. So to call yourself a poet is a kind of dangerous description. It's for others; it's for others to use.

I like being misunderstood.

I'm sometimes mistaken as the wife of the chairman. I just laugh it off.

A poet ought not to pick nature's pocket. Let him borrow, and so borrow as to repay by the very act of borrowing. Examine nature accurately, but write from recollection, and trust more to the imagination than the memory.

It is an occupational hazard to be quoted out of context.

We need to become more acutely conscious that words matter. None of us would deny that ideas and opinions matter, but we can sometimes be careless about how we express them. The words we choose to advance an idea, opinion, or point of view have a huge impact on how people react and respond to that view. When we use hyperbole, we increase the chances of being misunderstood and of promoting equally exaggerated counter-reactions, especially when people are reacting almost instantaneously.

I'm very much known as being the smiley girl, and unfortunately, lightness can be mistaken for stupidity or someone with no depth.

I think I have a deep-seated fear of being misunderstood. Or being misjudged.

Sometimes I get the story wrong, or it's the wrong story, and then things don't work.

Sometimes literary critics review the book they wanted you to write, not the book you wrote, and that's very irksome.

The 'Celeb Juice' job was never mine - people just guessed - but it was quite funny to watch the rumours.

I once said a poet has the right to sing as loudly and vocally as he wants to. Most poets should face a rock n' roll audience for one night to keep them honest.

People used to assume I was a serious/sad person because of my music for some reason.

People have linked me to a lot of people. But people also project what they want to see for you.

In the world of speeches and orations, especially historical ones, the persistent misquotation is understandable. You hear a speech. You misremember or mishear a line as something more colorful than it was.

Why does a writer labor over nuance and context if it won't be respected, if a critic insists on ignoring the writing at hand in favor of a more convenient analysis of his or her own particular pet peeves and straw men?