black
grey
blue
red
brown
white

The fame of heroes owes little to the extent of their conquests and all to the success of the tributes paid to them.

Jean Genet

If we behave like those on the other side, then we are the other side. Instead of changing the world, all we’ll achieve is a reflection of the one we want to destroy.
JEAN GENET

Achievement Behavior Change Destroy Reflection
A man must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dreaming is nursed in darkness.
JEAN GENET

Act Dreams Man Nurse Order Time
I don’t want to disappear.
JEAN GENET

Disappear Lost Myself
There is a close relationship between flowers and convicts.
JEAN GENET

Convict Flower Relationship
Slowly but surly I want to strip her of every kind of happiness as to make a saint of her.
JEAN GENET

Happiness Herself Kind Slow
Betrayal is beautiful.
JEAN GENET

Beautiful Betrayal One Liner
The time for reasoning is past; now’s the time to get steamed up and fight like mad.
JEAN GENET

Fight Inspirational Mad Past Reason Time
Beauty is the projection of ugliness and by developing certain monstrosities we obtain the purest ornaments.
JEAN GENET

Beautiful Monster Ornament Projection Purity Ugly
I could not take lightly the idea that people made love without me.
JEAN GENET

Ideas Light Love Myself People
When we see life, we call it beautiful. When we see death, we call it ugly. But it is more beautiful still to see oneself living at great speed, right up to the moment of death.
JEAN GENET

Beautiful Death Life Moments See
Poetry is the break (or rather the meeting at the breaking point) between the visible and the invisible.
JEAN GENET

Break Poet Poetry Visible Writing
Though they may not always be handsome men doomed to evil posses the manly virtues.
JEAN GENET

Appearance Handsome Men Virtue
Prisons! 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

Blessing Evil Place Prison World
Beauty has no other origin than the singular wound, different in every case, hidden or visible, which each man bears within himself, which he preserves, and into which he withdraws when he would quit the world for a temporary but authentic solitude.
JEAN GENET

Authentic Beauty Himself Man Quit Solitude Source Temporary Wound
Worse than not realizing the dreams of your youth, would be to have been young and never dreamed at all.
JEAN GENET

Dreams Realize Regret Worst Young Yourself Youth
Added to the moral solitude of the murderer comes the solitude of the artist, which can acknowledge no authority, save that of another artist.
JEAN GENET

Acknowledgement Artist Moral Murder Save Solitude
On him, under him, with his mouth pressed to hers, he sang to her uncouth songs that moved through her body.
JEAN GENET

Body Himself Move
The main object of a revolution is the liberation of man… not the interpretation and application of some transcendental ideology.
JEAN GENET

Application Ideology Liberty Man Object Revolution
Limited 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 GENET

Cruelty Limitation World
The most reasonable man always manages, when he pulls the trigger, to become a dispenser of justice.
JEAN GENET

Justice Man Management Reason Trigger Weapon
The fame of heroes owes little to the extent of their conquests and all to the success of the tributes paid to them.
JEAN GENET

Fame Hero Pay Success
One 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 GENET

Himself Home Street Talk
Solitude, 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 GENET

Happiness Knowledge Royalty Secret Solitude State Understand Vulnerable
I’m homosexual. How and why are idle questions. It’s a little like wanting to know why my eyes are green.
JEAN GENET

Eyes Myself Question Sexuality Silly
Anyone who’s never experienced the pleasure of betrayal doesn’t know what pleasure is.
JEAN GENET

Betrayal Experience Happiness Pleasure
What I did not yet know so intensely was the hatred of the white American for the black, a hatred so deep that I wonder if every white man in this country, when he plants a tree, doesn’t see Negroes hanging from its branches.
JEAN GENET

Black Branch Country Hate Man Myself Plant
Anyone who hasn’t experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all.
JEAN GENET

Betrayal Experience Happiness

The fame of heroes owes little to the extent of their conquests and all to the success of the tributes paid to them.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

The fame of heroes owes little to the extent of their conquests and all to the success of the tributes paid to them.

Related Topics

Popular Authors

More Jean Genet Quotes