For Genet, reflective states of mind are the rule. And although they are of an unstable nature in everyone, in him...reflection is always contrary to the reflected feeling.

The world is sacred because it gives an inkling of a meaning that escapes us.

...the impossible must be supposed in order to explain the superdetermination of the event

For Genet, Beauty will be the offensive weapon that will enable him to beat the just on their own ground: that of value.

Virtue is the death of conscience because it is the habit of Good, and yet the ethic of the honest man infinitely prefers virtue to the noblest agonies of conscience. Thus, being poses nonbeing and eliminates it. There is only being.

...the prisoner's dreams is the guard's spirituality.

The dreamer must contaminate the others by his dream, he must make them fall into it.

He wanted to assume his entire condition, to carry the world on his shoulders and to become, in defiance of all, what all have made of him.

I was your luxury. For nineteen years I have been put in your man's world and was forbidden to touch anything and you made me think that all was going very well and that I did not have to worry about anything but putting flowers in vases. Why did you lie to me? Why did you keep me ignorant, if it was to admit to me one day that this world is cracking and that you are all powerless and to make me choose between a suicide and a murder?

Politics is a science. You can demonstrate that you are right and that others are wrong.

I do not give a damn about the dead. They died for the [Communist] Party and the Party can decide what it wants. I practice a live man's politics, for the living.

What do you want to do with the [Communist] Party? A racing stable? What good is it to sharpen a knife every day if you never use it for slicing? A party is never more than a means. There is only one objective: power.

Intellectuals cannot be good revolutionaries; they are just good enough to be assassins.

I was not the one to invent lies: they were created in a society divided by class and each of us inherited lies when we were born. It is not by refusing to lie that we will abolish lies: it is by eradicating class by any means necessary.

The [Communist] Party has one objective: the creation of a socialist economy; and one means: the utilization of the class struggle.

As far as men go, it is not what they are that interests me, but what they can become.

You take souls for vegetables.... The gardener can decide what will become of his carrots but no one can choose the good of others for them.

I say a murder is abstract. You pull the trigger and after that you do not understand anything that happens.

It is the same thing: killing, dying, it is the same thing: one is just as alone in each. He is lucky, he will only die once. As for me, for ten days I have been killing him at every minute. Hugo to Jessica, on his plans to kill.

Listen to me: a family man is never a real family man. An assassin is never entirely assassin. They play a role, you understand. While a dead man, he is really dead. To be or not to be, right?

We will freedom for freedom's sake, in and through particular circumstances. And in thus willing freedom, we discover that it depends entirely upon the freedom of others and that the freedom of others depends upon our own. Obviously, freedom as the definition of a man does not depend upon others, but as soon as there is a commitment, I am obliged to will the liberty of others at the same time as my own. I cannot make liberty my aim unless I make that of others equally my aim.

Existentialism is nothing else but an attempt to draw the full conclusions from a consistently atheistic position. Its intention is not in the least that of plunging men into despair. And if by despair one means as the Christians do - any attitude of unbelief, the despair of the existentialists is something different. Existentialism is not atheist in the sense that it would exhaust itself in demonstrations of the non-existence of God. It declares, rather, that even if God existed that would make no difference from its point of view. Not that we believe God does exist, but we think that the real problem is not that of His existence; what man needs is to find himself again and to understand that nothing can save him from himself, not even a valid proof of the existence of God. In this sense existentialism is optimistic. It is a doctrine of action, and it is only by self-deception, by confining their own despair with ours that Christians can describe us as without hope.

Life has no meaning a priori ... It is up to you to give it a meaning, and value is nothing but the meaning that you choose.

It is the good children, Madame, who make the most terrible revolutionaries. They say nothing, they do not hide under the table, they eat only one sweet at a time, but later on, they make Society pay dearly for it!

As for us, my little friend, we entered [the Communist Party] because we were tired of dying of hunger.

I respect orders but I respect myself too and I do not obey foolish rules made especially to humiliate me.

They made me take cod liver oil: that is the height of luxury: a medicine to make you hungry while the others, in the street, would have sold themselves for a beefsteak. I saw them passing my window with their signs: "Give me bread".

In any case, if you ever leave me with a handsome man, do not tell me that you trust me because, let me warn you: that is not what will prevent me from deceiving you, if I want to. On the contrary.

Karsky: I met your father last week. Are you still interested in hearing how he is doing?Hugo: No.Karsky: It is very probable that you will be responsible for his death.Hugo: It is virtually certain that he is responsible for my life. We are even.

I entered the [Communist] Party because its cause was just and I will leave it when it ceases to be just.

The best work is not what is most difficult for you; it is what you do best.

I know nothing, I am neither woman nor girl; I have been living in a dream and when someone kissed me, it made me want to laugh. Now I am here before you, it seems as though I have just awakened and it is morning.

It is the same: a chosen one is a man whom God's finger crushes against the wall.

I can be twenty women, one hundred, if that's what you want, all women. Ride with me behind you, I weigh nothing, your horse will not feel me. I want to be your whorehouse!

Catherine: Why commit Evil?Goetz: Because Good has already been done.Catherine: Who has done it?Goetz: God the Father. I, on the other hand, am improvising.

I am not virtuous. Our sons will be if we shed enough blood to give them the right to be.

Yes, Lord, you are innocence itself: how could you conceive of Nothingness, you who are plenitude? Your gaze is light and transforms all into light: how could you know the half-light in my heart?

If you want to deserve Hell, you need only stay in bed. The world is iniquity; if you accept it, you are an accomplice, if you change it you are an executioner.

There are two types of poor people, those who are poor together and those who are poor alone. The first are the true poor, the others are rich people out of luck.

I will not be modest. Humble, as much as you like, but not modest. Modesty is the virtue of the lukewarm.

One cannot become a saint when one works sixteen hours a day.

Ah! yes, I know: those who see me rarely trust my word: I must look too intelligent to keep it.

When the rich make war, it's the poor that die.

I tell you in truth: all men are Prophets or else God does not exist.

If you are not already dead, forgive. Rancor is heavy, it is worldly; leave it on earth: die light.

I know only one Church: it is the society of men.

If a victory is told in detail, one can no longer distinguish it from a defeat.

It is too early to love. We will buy the right to do so by shedding blood.

Your church is a whore: she sells her favors to the rich.

It is not the same thing. You are perhaps not lying, but you are not telling the truth.