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I recognize in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty – a sunken beauty.

Jean Genet

I decided to be what crime made of me.
JEAN GENET

Crime Decision Myself
Repudiating the virtues of your world, criminals hopelessly agree to organize a forbidden universe. They agree to live in it. The air there is nauseating. They can breathe it.
JEAN GENET

Agreement Breathe Crime Hope Virtue World
Violence is a calm that disturbs you.
JEAN GENET

Calm Disturb Violence Yourself
Though they may not always be handsome men doomed to evil posses the manly virtues.
JEAN GENET

Appearance Handsome Men Virtue
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
I could not take lightly the idea that people made love without me.
JEAN GENET

Ideas Light Love Myself People
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
I recognize in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty – a sunken beauty.
JEAN GENET

Beautiful Myself Recognition Thief
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
By stretching language we’ll distort it sufficiently to wrap ourselves in it and hide.
JEAN GENET

Hide Language Ourselves Stretch Wrap
I give the name violence to a boldness lying idle and enamored of danger.
JEAN GENET

Bold Dangerous Lying Name Violence
Creation is not a light-hearted game. The creator commits to a terrible adventure, which is to take up-on himself all of the dangers that his creatures run.
JEAN GENET

Commitment Creation Creature Game Heart Light Run
Crimes of which a people is ashamed constitute its real history. The same is true of man.
JEAN GENET

Crime Man People Shame True
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
What we need is hatred. From it our ideas are born.
JEAN GENET

Born Hate Ideas Need
Love makes use of the worst traps. The least noble. The rarest. It exploits coincidence.
JEAN GENET

Coincidence Love Rare Worst
Anyone who’s never experienced the pleasure of betrayal doesn’t know what pleasure is.
JEAN GENET

Betrayal Experience Happiness Pleasure
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
My 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 GENET

Hand Heart Myself Trap
It’s the hour when night breaks away from the day, my dove, let me go.
JEAN GENET

Break Day Let Go Myself Night
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
There is a close relationship between flowers and convicts.
JEAN GENET

Convict Flower Relationship
Anyone who knows a strange fact shares in its singularity.
JEAN GENET

Fact Share Strange
Erotic play discloses a nameless world which is revealed by the nocturnal language of lovers. Such language is not written down. It is whispered into the ear at night in a hoarse voice. At dawn it is forgotten.
JEAN GENET

Dawn Language Morning Name Play Reveal Voice Whisper
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
The pimp has a grin, never a smile.
JEAN GENET

Devil Difference Smile

I recognize in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty – a sunken beauty.

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I recognize in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty – a sunken beauty.

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Popular Authors

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