Quotes by

Jean Genet

We know that their adventures are childish. They themselves are fools. They are ready to kill or be killed over a card-game in which an opponent — or they themselves — was cheating. Yet, thanks to such fellows, tragedies are possible. – Jean Genet

There 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 Genet

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, doesnt see Negroes hanging from its branches. – Jean Genet

Would Hamlet have felt the delicious fascination of suicide if he hadnt had an audience, and lines to speak? – Jean Genet

A man must dream a long time in order to act with grandeur, and dreaming is nursed in darkness. – Jean Genet

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

A great wind swept over the ghetto, carrying away shame, invisibility and four centuries of humiliation. But when the wind dropped people saw it had been only a little breeze, friendly, almost gentle. – Jean Genet

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

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

Crimes of which a people is ashamed constitute its real history. The same is true of man. – Jean Genet