Jean Cocteau Quotes

There is a quality of selfishness that is associated with an individual when they are in the depths of addiction.

There are all kinds of addictions, and I've got every single one. If you set me in front of anything, I will do it until I ram it into the ground and it's done working for me.

Goering is a morphine addict…a classic megalomaniac.

A man who drinks too much on occasion is still the same man as he was sober. An alcoholic, a real alcoholic, is not the same man at all. You can't predict anything about him for sure except that he will be someone you never met before.

Never get high on your own supply.

Heroin: Try it once … Hooked for life.

The thing about addiction is you think you're getting off on people, and you're not, and the only person you're fooling is yourself.

I think I bought into that whole rock n' roll lifestyle, and all that does in the end is kill ya. So I don't recommend it to anyone.

I like the idea of generalizing the narcotic thing by making it black meat addiction.

Addiction is when you can't get enough of what you don't want any more.

I've seen the needle and the damage done.

Kissing can ruin lives. Lips touch sometimes teeth clash. New hunger is born with a throb and caution falls away. A cursed girl with lips still moist from her first kiss might feel suddenly wild like a little monsoon. She might forget her curse just long enough to get careless and let it come true. She might kill everyone she loves.

I liked the ceremony, the ritual of preparing cocaine, as much as doing it. I did it for a year, loved it, then stopped. Now I feel the same way about cooking.

Junk is not, like alcohol or weed, a means to increased enjoyment of life. Junk is not a kick. It is a way of life.

I think about my cocaine use. I liked it. I thought it was a great drug. But I knew that if I was doing that almost exclusively, I wouldn't be able to continue to also have significant others and a wide range of other things. And I wasn't special. A number of people, including the people I was doing cocaine with, also behaved the same way.

Take a shot in front of D.L. Probing for a vein in my dirty bare foot... Junkies have no shame... They are impervious to the repugnance of others. It is doubtful if shame can exist in the absence of sexual libido... The junky's shame disappears with his nonsexual sociability which is also dependent on libido.

This diary is my kief, hashish and opium pipe. This is my drug and my vice.

Addiction has the capacity to disconnect the human will and nullify moral agency. It can rob one of the power to decide.

For my most of my career I've been a falling-down drunk. Most of my interviews were done hungover, and for a while it was great.

I think if you were Satan and you were settin around tryin to think up somethin that would just bring the human race to its knees what you would probably come up with is narcotics.

The mentality and behavior of drug addicts and alcoholics is wholly irrational until you understand that they are completely powerless over their addiction and unless they have structured help they have no hope.

Sherlock Holmes took his bottle from the corner of the mantel-piece, and his hypodermic syringe from its neat morocco case. With his long, white, nervous fingers he adjusted the delicate needle, and rolled back his left shirt-cuff. For some little time his eyes rested thoughtfully upon the sinewy forearm and wrist, all dotted and scarred with innumerable puncture-marks. Finally, he thrust the sharp point home, pressed down the tiny piston, and sank back into the velvet-lined armchair with a long sigh of satisfaction.

Our interests are grains of opium to our consciences, but they only put it to sleep for a terrible awakening.

Might. Is there any opiate more powerful than that word?

Alcohol is the river we sit on the banks of, contemplating. Sometimes we watch ourselves float past, sometimes we watch ourselves sink.