Quotes from Jean Genet

Als er iets mis gaat, (...) gaat mijn geest, zodra ik, maar even de tijd krijg, (...), aan het werk om mij de al te wrede werkelijkheid te maskeren. Zo snel mogelijk maak ik voor mezelf een wereld waarin ik hofjonker ben, prins, koning of scheepsjongen (...). Het is alsof een handle wordt overgehaald en een valluik zich opent, waardoor ik in een fantasiewereld stort die wraak neemt. (...) het kan ook zijn dat in het dromen mijn roeping ligt.

Indifferent and bright as a slaughterhouse knife, he passed by, cleaving them all into two slices which came noiselessly together again, though emitting a slight scent of hopelessness which no one divulged.

May I venture an explanation: writing is the ultimate recourse for those who have betrayed

Since Divine is dead, the poet may sing her, may tell her legend, the Saga, the annals of Divine. The Divine Saga should be danced, mimed, with subtle directions. Since it is impossible to make a ballet of it, I am forced to use words that are weighed down with precise ideas, but I shall try to lighten them with expressions that are empty, hollow and invisible.

What made the colony a realm distinct from the realm of the living was the change of symbols and, in certain cases, of values. The colonists had their own dialect, which was closely related to that of the prisons, and hence a particular ethics and politics.

Personally, I believe the Koran is more trustworthy than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, he said" - Jean Genet, Jean Genet in Tangier

Personally, I believe the Koran is more trustworthy than Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, he said

All i know is that the world exists. But only god himself knows whether He exists.

I think the Moslems have gone beyond the ethic and traditions of the Koran. But in spite of that, the Koran is still a great book, one that's read by Moslems and non-Moslems alike.

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

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

To achieve harmony in bad taste is the height of elegance.

I could not take lightly the idea that people made love without me.

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.

I wanted to swallow myself by opening my mouth very wide and turning it over my head so that it would take in my whole body, and then the Universe, until all that would remain of me would be a ball of eaten thing which little by little would be annihilated: that is how I see the end of the world.

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.

Anyone who hasn't experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing of ecstasy at all.

She was happy, and perfectly in line with the tradition of those women they used to call "ruined," "fallen," feckless, bitches in heat, ravished dolls, sweet sluts, instant princesses, hot numbers, great lays, succulent morsels, everybody's darlings...

It's the hour when night breaks away from the day, my dove, let me go.

They spent their time doing nothing... they let intimacy fuse them.

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.

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.

Ah those knock-out body fluids: blood, sperm, tears!

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