Crimes of which a people is ashamed constitute its real history. The same is true of man.
JEAN GENETCrimes of which a people is ashamed constitute its real history. The same is true of man.
JEAN GENETThough they may not always be handsome men doomed to evil posses the manly virtues.
JEAN GENETWhat we need is hatred. From it our ideas are born.
JEAN GENETAnyone who hasn’t experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all.
JEAN GENETLimited by the world, which I oppose, jagged by it, I shall be all the more handsome and sparkling as the angles which wound me and give me shape are more acute and the jagging more cruel.
JEAN GENETThere is a close relationship between flowers and convicts. The fragility and delicacy of the former are of the same nature as the brutal insensitivity of the latter.
JEAN GENETEvery premeditated murder is always governed by a preparatory ceremonial and is always followed by a propitiatory ceremonial. The meaning of both eludes the murderers mind.
JEAN GENETThe vaporish cocaine loosens the contours of their lives and sets their bodies adrift, and so they are untouchable.
JEAN GENETSolitude, as I understand it, does not signify an unhappy state, but rather secret royalty, profound incommunicability yet a more or less obscure knowledge of an invulnerable singularity.
JEAN GENETA man must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dreaming is nursed in darkness.
JEAN GENETOne can hear all that’s going on in the street. Which means that from the street one can hear what’s going on in this house.
JEAN GENETMy heart’s in my hand, and my hand is pierced, and my hand’s in the bag, and the bag is shut, and my heart is caught.
JEAN GENETThe fame of heroes owes little to the extent of their conquests and all to the success of the tributes paid to them.
JEAN GENETThe main object of a revolution is the liberation of man… not the interpretation and application of some transcendental ideology.
JEAN GENETI’m homosexual. How and why are idle questions. It’s a little like wanting to know why my eyes are green.
JEAN GENETPrisons! Prisons! Prisons, dungeons, blessed places where evil is impossible since they are the crossroads of all the malediction in the world. One cannot commit evil in evil.
JEAN GENET