Quotes by Jean Genet

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.

on him, under him, with his mouth pressed to hers, he sang to her uncouth songs that moved through her body.

It was the first time I saw the look on the face of the people I robbed: it was ugly. I was the cause of such ugliness, and the only thing that made me feel was a cruel pleasure which, I thought, was bound to transfigure my own face, to make me resplendent. I was then 23 years old. From that moment on, I felt capable of advancing in cruelty.

Worse than not realizing the dreams of your youth, would be to have been young and never dreamed at all.

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

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