Genet
The Outcast
He made a cathedral of prison. Of betrayal, a sacrament. Jean wrote as one steals: with grace.
26
Quotes
21
Themes
0
Era
Life and journey
Abandoned. Thief. Prisoner. Jean started at the bottom and built cathedrals.
Their thought
Beauty where no one looks for it. Betrayal, marginality, sacrilege.
What they leave us
He still disturbs. time bombs. He changed the face of world theatre.
Major works
Our Lady of the Flowers (1944).
The Maids (1947).
Filter by themes:
26 quotes
“La trahison est belle. C'est le passage de la nuit au jour.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“Betrayal is beautiful. It's the transition from night to day.”
— Journal du voleur
“La sainteté, c'est de faire servir la douleur.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“Holiness is making pain serve.”
— Journal du voleur
“Je veux chanter l'assassinat, car j'aime les assassins.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“I want to sing about assassination because I love assassins.”
— Journal du voleur
“J'ai décidé d'être ce que le crime a fait de moi.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“I have decided to be what crime has made of me.”
— Journal du voleur
“Le talent, c'est la politesse à l'égard de la matière.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“Talent is politeness towards the material.”
— Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs
“Dieu est un mot creux. C'est le trou par lequel s'échappe le vide.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“God is an empty word. It's the hole through which emptiness escapes.”
— Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs
“Le monde est un bordel, ma chère, où chacun joue son rôle.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“The world is a brothel, my dear, where everyone plays their role.”
— Le Balcon
“La beauté n'a d'autre origine que la blessure...”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“Beauty has no other origin but the wound...”
— L'Atelier d'Giacometti
“Je suis le lâche, le traître, le voleur... mais un mot suffit à tout changer.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“I am the coward, the traitor, the thief... but one word is enough to change everything.”
— Journal du voleur
“La nuit est un immense espace cubique. Un bloc d'ombre.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“The night is a massive cubic space. A block of shadow.”
— Notre-Dame-des-Fleurs
“Il faut que le mal soit fait pour que le bien soit.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“Evil must be done for good to exist.”
— Le Balcon
“Madame est bonne ! Madame est belle !”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“Madam is kind! Madam is beautiful!”
— Les Bonnes
“Le deuil est un bonheur d'être triste.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“Mourning is the happiness of being sad.”
— Pompes Funèbres
“La révolution est un moment de grâce où l'histoire s'arrête.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“Revolution is a moment of grace where history stops.”
— Un Captif Amoureux
“La solitude des objets est aussi grande que celle des hommes.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“The solitude of objects is as great as that of men.”
— L'Atelier d'Giacometti
“Un homme doit rêver longtemps pour agir avec grandeur, et le rêve se nourrit dans l'obscurité.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“A man must dream long to act with greatness, and the dream feeds in the darkness.”
— Inconnu
“Atteindre l'harmonie dans le mauvais goût, c'est le comble de l'élégance.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“Achieving harmony in bad taste is the ultimate elegance.”
— Inconnu
“Quiconque n'a pas connu l'extase de la trahison ne sait rien de l'extase.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“Whoever has not known the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing of ecstasy.”
— Inconnu
“Pire que de ne pas réaliser les rêves de sa jeunesse, c'est d'avoir été jeune et de n'avoir jamais rêvé.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“Worse than not realizing the dreams of one's youth, is to have been young and never dreamed.”
— Inconnu
“Les crimes dont un peuple a honte constituent sa véritable histoire. Il en va de même pour l'homme.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“The crimes of which a people are ashamed constitute its real history. The same is true for man.”
— Inconnu
“Je ne pouvais pas prendre à la légère l'idée que des gens faisaient l'amour sans moi.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“I could not take lightly the idea that people were making love without me.”
— Inconnu
“Ce dont nous avons besoin, c'est de la haine. De là naissent nos idées.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“What we need is hatred. From there our ideas are born.”
— Inconnu
“Mon cœur est dans ma main, et ma main est percée, et ma main est dans le sac, et le sac est fermé, et mon cœur est pris.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“My heart is in my hand, and my hand is pierced, and my hand is in the bag, and the bag is closed, and my heart is taken.”
— Inconnu
“L'élégance, c'est la politesse à l'égard de la matière.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“Elegance is politeness toward matter.”
— Inconnu
“Tout mon travail tend vers une sorte de solitude inhabitée.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“All my work tends towards a sort of uninhabited solitude.”
— Inconnu
“Le monde est un bordel où chacun joue son rôle.”
Original quote in French
Suggested translation
“The world is a brothel where everyone plays their role.”
— Inconnu
