Jean Genet Quotes

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.

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.

By dint of saying that I'm not alive, I accept the fact that people cease to regard me.

Betrayal is beautiful.

The pimp has a grin, never a smile.

Added to the moral solitude of the murderer comes the solitude of the artist, which can acknowledge no authority, save that of another artist.

Though they may not always be handsome men doomed to evil posses the manly virtues.

We are the ink that gives the white page a meaning.