Jean Genet quote: "When the judge calls the criminal's name out he stands up, and they are immediately linked by a strange biology that makes them both opposite and complementary. The one cannot exist without the other. Which is the sun and which is the shadow? It's well known some criminals have been great men."

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

Power may be at the end of a gun, but sometimes it's also at the end of the shadow or the image of a...
JEAN GENET

Perhaps all music, even the newest, is not so much something discovered as something that re-emerges...
JEAN GENET

Repudiating the virtues of your world, criminals hopelessly agree to organize a forbidden universe. ...
JEAN GENET

Crimes of which a people is ashamed constitute its real history. The same is true of man.
JEAN GENET

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

The fame of heroes owes little to the extent of their conquests and all to the success of the tribut...
JEAN GENET

Would Hamlet have felt the delicious fascination of suicide if he hadn't had an audience, and lines ...
JEAN GENET

What I did not yet know so intensely was the hatred of the white American for the black, a hatred so...
JEAN GENET

There is a close relationship between flowers and convicts. The fragility and delicacy of the former...
JEAN GENET

We know that their adventures are childish. They themselves are fools. They are ready to kill or be ...
JEAN GENET

The force of what was called Panther rhetoric or word mongering resided not in elegant discourse but...
JEAN GENET

Excluded by my birth and tastes from the social order, I was not aware of its diversity. Nothing in ...
JEAN GENET

A great wind swept over the ghetto, carrying away shame, invisibility and four centuries of humiliat...
JEAN GENET

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

What we need is hatred. From it our ideas are born.
JEAN GENET

The main object of a revolution is the liberation of man... not the interpretation and application o...
JEAN GENET

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

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

Neither the state guards nor the municipal police stopped me. What they saw going by was no longer a...
JEAN GENET

It was the first time I saw the look on the face of the people I robbed: it was ugly. I was the caus...
JEAN GENET

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

Betrayal is beautiful.
JEAN GENET

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

I give the name violence to a boldness lying idle and enamored of danger.
JEAN GENET

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

Violence is a calm that disturbs you.
JEAN GENET

I'm homosexual... How and why are idle questions. It's a little like wanting to know why my eyes are...
JEAN GENET

The pimp has a grin, never a smile.
JEAN GENET

I wanted to swallow myself by opening my mouth very wide and turning it over my head so that it woul...
JEAN GENET

One can hear all that's going on in the street. Which means that from the street one can hear what's...
JEAN GENET

There is always a period when a man with a beard shaves it off. This period does not last. He return...
JEAN COCTEAU

The conscience of children is formed by the influences that surround them; their notions of good and...
JEAN PAUL

The moon looks upon many night flowers; the night flowers see but one moon.
JEAN INGELOW

Only the mediocre are always at their best.
JEAN GIRAUDOUX

A healthful hunger for a great idea is the beauty and blessedness of life.
JEAN INGELOW

My daddy was a minister, my grandfather was a voodoo priest, my uncle was a mason; I was raised with...
WYCLEF JEAN

Like dreams, statistics are a form of wish fulfillment.
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

At the end of the day, just know that God made you, so you can be your own individual, and don't...
WYCLEF JEAN

In my long and difficult and mature life, I have come to learn that the less I know about acting and...
JEAN SEBERG

There are souls which fall from heaven like flowers, but ere they bloom are crushed under the foul t...
JEAN PAUL

Too often, we make budget cuts - then blow the savings. Instead, think about your financial picture....
JEAN CHATZKY

One way to make sure you don't lose assets in the future is to streamline your accounts. Conside...
JEAN CHATZKY

The brave men die in war. It takes great luck or judgment not to be killed. Once, at least, the head...
JEAN GIRAUDOUX

If you want to give a tangible present, but you know the recipient wants cash, give a little bit of ...
JEAN CHATZKY

Idleness is many gathered miseries in one name.
JEAN PAUL

It would be ugly to watch people poking sticks at a caged rat. It is uglier still to watch rats poki...
JEAN HARRIS

Courage consists not in blindly overlooking danger, but in seeing it, and conquering it.
JEAN PAUL

Turning a blind eye to your finances always brings trouble. When you let the bills or late notices s...
JEAN CHATZKY

I don't judge a regime by the damning criticism of the opposition, but by the ingenuous praise of th...
JEAN ROSTAND

A poor person who is unhappy is in a better position than a rich person who is unhappy because the p...
JEAN KERR

The more sand has escaped from the hourglass of our life, the clearer we should see through it.
JEAN PAUL

That's the best way to feed the human mind. That's how Bob Marley did it. He never put it in...
WYCLEF JEAN

Men try to run life according to their wishes; life runs itself according to necessity.
JEAN TOOMER

Bob Marley stood for universal peace and love. He tried to break racial barriers.
WYCLEF JEAN

The look of a king is itself a deed.
JEAN PAUL

Children and lunatics cut the Gordian knot which the poet spends his life patiently trying to untie.
JEAN COCTEAU

Marrying a man is like buying something you've been admiring for a long time in a shop window. You m...
JEAN KERR

I think I am one of those who can manage not to take on a completely different appearance under thei...
JEAN ROSTAND

Unlike other loans, a reverse mortgage doesn't have to be repaid until the borrower moves out of...
JEAN CHATZKY

A woman of mystique is fully aware of her flaws and weaknesses, yet she is strong enough to admit ...
JEAN LUSH

Nothing leads the scientist so astray as a premature truth.
JEAN ROSTAND

When a scientist is ahead of his times, it is often through misunderstanding of current, rather than...
JEAN ROSTAND

It is not easy to imagine how little interested a scientist usually is in the work of any other, wit...
JEAN ROSTAND

It is sometimes important for science to know how to forget the things she is surest of.
JEAN ROSTAND

A body of work such as Pasteur's is inconceivable in our time: no man would be given a chance to cre...
JEAN ROSTAND

The truly terrible thing is that everybody has their reasons.
JEAN RENOIR

To reflect is to disturb one's thoughts.
JEAN ROSTAND

Perhaps the world's second worst crime is boredom. The first is being a bore.
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

She said, "As long as we're with each other--"
"We know we're in exactly the right place," he f...
JEAN FERRIS

Prerequisite for rereadability in books: that they be forgettable.
JEAN ROSTAND

The books one has written in the past have two surprises in store: one couldn't write them again, an...
JEAN ROSTAND

She could give herself up to the written word as naturally as a good dancer to music or a fine swimm...
JEAN RHYS

In politics, yesterday's lie is attacked only to flatter today's.
JEAN ROSTAND

In order to remain true to oneself one ought to renounce one's party three times a day.
JEAN ROSTAND

It is sometimes well for a blatant error to draw attention to overmodest truths.
JEAN ROSTAND

One of the most difficult things to contend with in a hospital is that assumption on the part of the...
JEAN KERR

Whether man is disposed to yield to nature or to oppose her, he cannot do without a correct understa...
JEAN ROSTAND

Certain brief sentences are peerless in their ability to give one the feeling that nothing remains...
JEAN ROSTAND

The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.
JEAN ROSTAND

There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past.
JEAN ROSTAND

Certain brief sentences are peerless in their ability to give one the feeling that nothing remains t...
JEAN ROSTAND

The only things one can admire at length are those one admires without knowing why.
JEAN ROSTAND

God, that dumping ground of our dreams.
JEAN ROSTAND

God, that checkroom of our dreams.
JEAN ROSTAND

I'm starting to believe that happily ever after includes people doing things that upset each other. ...
JEAN FERRIS

The principle goal of education in the schools should be creating men and women who are capable of d...
JEAN PIAGET

The principle goal of education is to create men who are capable of doing new things, not simply of ...
JEAN PIAGET

You don't seem to realize that a poor person who is unhappy is in a better position than a rich pe...
JEAN KERR

Strong character is brought out by change, weak ones by permanence.
JEAN PAUL

The nobility of a human being is strictly independent of that of his convictions.
JEAN ROSTAND

The timid are afraid before the danger, the cowardly while in danger, and the courageous after dange...
JEAN PAUL

We can be seduced...by powerful political groups that promise more wealth and lower taxes. Those wit...
JEAN VANIER

Mirrors should think longer before they reflect.
JEAN COCTEAU

At twenty-four she imagined with dread that she was growing old.
JEAN RHYS

Stupidity, outrage, vanity, cruelty, iniquity, bad faith, falsehood -- we fail to see the whole arra...
JEAN ROSTAND

Contact with men who wield power and authority still leaves an intangible sense of repulsion. It's v...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

Life is a comedy to those who think, a tragedy to those who feel.
JEAN RACINE

Memory is the only paradise from which we cannot be driven.
JEAN PAUL

The only medicine that does women more good than harm is dress.
JEAN PAUL

To be adult is to be alone.
JEAN ROSTAND

All good music resembles something. Good music stirs by its mysterious resemblance to the objects an...
JEAN COCTEAU

No author can be as moral as his work and no preacher as pious as his sermons.
JEAN PAUL

Humankind's chief fault is that they have so many small ones.
JEAN PAUL

Passion makes the best observations and the sorriest conclusions.
JEAN PAUL

The parent is low, who having children, truly feels bored.
JEAN PAUL

It takes a very deep-rooted opinion to survive unexpressed.
JEAN ROSTAND

You don't seem to realize that a poor person who is unhappy is in a better position than a rich pers...
JEAN KERR

If a hermit lives in a state of ecstasy, his lack of comfort becomes the height of comfort. He must ...
JEAN COCTEAU

We all have the extraordinary coded within us... waiting to be released.
JEAN HOUSTON

The era of the political was one of anomie: crisis, violence, madness and revolution. The era of the...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

Politicians -- power itself -- are abject because they merely embody the profound contempt people ha...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

It only takes a politician believing in what he says for the others to stop believing him.
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

The abjection of our political situation is the only true challenge today. Only facing up to this si...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

The end we aim at must be known, before the way can be made.
JEAN PAUL

The average, healthy, well-adjusted adult gets up at seven-thirty in the morning feeling just plain ...
JEAN KERR

The ideal, without doubt, varies, but its enemies, alas, are always the same.
JEAN ROSTAND

Brevity is the body and soul of wit.
JEAN PAUL

Idleness is many gathered miseries in one name.
JEAN PAUL

No one is more profoundly sad as one who laughs too much.
JEAN PAUL

Even though a number of people have tried, no one has ever found a way to drink for a living.
JEAN KERR

It may offend us to hear our own thoughts expressed by others: we are not sure enough of their souls...
JEAN ROSTAND

One of the characteristics of the dream is that nothing surprises us in it. With no regret, we agree...
JEAN COCTEAU

If you can keep your head about you when all about you are losing theirs, its just possible you have...
JEAN KERR

If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it's just possible you haven't grasp...
JEAN KERR

Effective action is always unjust.
JEAN ANOUILH

Beauty in art is often nothing but ugliness subdued.
JEAN ROSTAND

I'm tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That's deep enough. What do you wa...
JEAN KERR

Fiction is not imagination. It is what anticipates imagination by giving it the form of reality. Thi...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

The divine is perhaps that quality in man which permits him to endure the lack of God.
JEAN ROSTAND

One must credit an hypothesis with all that has had to be discovered in order to demolish it.
JEAN ROSTAND

The greatest masterpiece in literature is only a dictionary out of order.
JEAN COCTEAU

Small crimes always precedes great ones.
JEAN RACINE

Our senses are indeed our doors and windows on this world, in a very real sense the key to the unloc...
JEAN HOUSTON

Poetry is indispensable --if I only knew what for.
JEAN COCTEAU

Such is the role of poetry. It unveils, in the strict sense of the word. It lays bare, under a light...
JEAN COCTEAU

Art is the most passionate orgy within man's grasp.
JEAN DUBUFFET

Art is science made clear.
JEAN COCTEAU

One must be a living man and a posthumous artist.
JEAN COCTEAU

Education makes us more stupid than the brutes. A thousand voices call to us on every hand, but our ...
JEAN GIRAUDOUX

Despair is the only genuine atheism.
JEAN PAUL

I am a lie who always speaks the truth.
JEAN COCTEAU

I have a piece of great and sad news to tell you: I am dead.
JEAN COCTEAU

Since the day of my birth, my death began its walk. It is walking toward me, without hurrying.
JEAN COCTEAU

Until the day of his death, no man can be sure of his courage.
JEAN ANOUILH

Deep down, no one really believes they have a right to live. But this death sentence generally stays...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

In youth one has tears without grief, in old age grief without tears.
JEAN PAUL

What the public criticizes in you, cultivate. It is you.
JEAN COCTEAU

Renown? I've already got more of it than those I respect, and will never have as much as those for w...
JEAN ROSTAND

Other exercises develop single powers and muscles, but dancing embellishes, exercises, and equalizes...
JEAN PAUL

No heroine can create a hero through love of one, but she can give birth to one.
JEAN PAUL

To hate fatigues.
JEAN ROSTAND

There is an invisible garment woven around us from our earliest years; it is made of the way we eat,...
JEAN GIRAUDOUX

Greatness, in order to gain recognition, must all too often consent to ape greatness.
JEAN ROSTAND

We must watch over our modesty in the presence of those who cannot understand its grounds.
JEAN ROSTAND

My only hope lies in my despair.
JEAN RACINE

Hope is the feeling you have that the feeling you have isn't permanent.
JEAN KERR

Without money honor is merely a disease.
JEAN RACINE

It's no longer a warmth hidden in my veins: it's Venus entire and whole fastening on her prey.
JEAN RACINE

Without God there is for mankind no purpose, no goal, no hope, only a wavering future, an eternal dr...
JEAN PAUL

The fear of being wrong is the prime inhibitor of the creative process.
JEAN BRYANT

Art produces ugly things which frequently become more beautiful with time. Fashion, on the other han...
JEAN COCTEAU

There are certain moments when we might wish the future were built by men of the past.
JEAN ROSTAND

The child is not to be educated for the present, but for the remote future, and often is opposition ...
JEAN PAUL

To say of men that they are bad is to say they are worse than we think we are, or worse than the ide...
JEAN ROSTAND

Joys are our wings, sorrows our spurs.
JEAN PAUL

The price we pay for the complexity of life is too high. When you think of all the effort you have t...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

Soon silence will have passed into legend. Man has turned his back on silence. Day after day he inve...
JEAN ARP

In the same way that we need statesmen to spare us the abjection of exercising power, we need schola...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

Saintliness is also a temptation.
JEAN ANOUILH

Style is a simple way of saying complicated things.
JEAN COCTEAU

What is line? It is life. A line must live at each point along its course in such a way that the art...
JEAN COCTEAU

The State has but one face for me: that of the police. To my eyes, all of the State's ministries hav...
JEAN DUBUFFET

Smile and others will smile back. Smile to show how transparent, how candid you are. Smile if you ha...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

It is not I who become addicted, it is my body.
JEAN COCTEAU

If an addict who has been completely cured starts smoking again he no longer experiences the discomf...
JEAN COCTEAU

The very definition of the real has become: that of which it is possible to give an equivalent repro...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

Propaganda is a soft weapon; hold it in your hands too long, and it will move about like a snake, an...
JEAN ANOUILH

At male strip shows, it is still the women that we watch, the audience of women and their eager face...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

Pornography is the quadraphonics of sex. It adds a third and fourth track to the sexual act. It is t...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

Nothing is irreparable in politics.
JEAN ANOUILH

If there is a species which is more maltreated than children, then it must be their toys, which they...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

One of life's primal situations; the game of hide and seek. Oh, the delicious thrill of hiding while...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

The local is a shabby thing. There's nothing worse than bringing us back down to our own little corn...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

It is restful, tragedy, because one knows that there is no more lousy hope left. You know you're cau...
JEAN ANOUILH

Neither dead nor alive, the hostage is suspended by an incalculable outcome. It is not his destiny t...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

We are all hostages, and we are all terrorists. This circuit has replaced that other one of masters ...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

Television knows no night. It is perpetual day. TV embodies our fear of the dark, of night, of the o...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

There is nothing more mysterious than a TV set left on in an empty room. It is even stranger than a ...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

Talent is like a faucet; while it is open, you have to write. Inspiration? -- a hoax fabricated by p...
JEAN ANOUILH

Tact is knowing how far to go too far.
JEAN COCTEAU

Tact in audacity consists in knowing how far we may go too far.
JEAN COCTEAU

One cannot weep for the entire world, it is beyond human strength. One must choose.
JEAN ANOUILH

If you want to be creative, stay in part a child, with the creativity and invention that characteriz...
JEAN PIAGET

The flower is the poetry of reproduction. It is an example of the eternal seductiveness of life.
JEAN GIRAUDOUX

If it has to choose who is to be crucified, the crowd will always save Barabbas.
JEAN COCTEAU

Santa Barbara is a paradise; Disneyland is a paradise; the U.S. is a paradise. Paradise is just para...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

I should have no use for a paradise in which I should be deprived of the right to prefer hell.
JEAN ROSTAND

Take a commonplace, clean it and polish it, light it so that it produces the same effect of youth an...
JEAN COCTEAU

The order of the world is always right -- such is the judgment of God. For God has departed, but he ...
JEAN BAUDRILLARD

When the judge calls the criminal's name out he stands up, and they are immediately linked by a strange biology that makes them both opposite and complementary. The one cannot exist without the other. Which is the sun and which is the shadow? It's well known some criminals have been great men.

Jean Genet

Share:

Related

More Jean Genet