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Quote by Jean Genet

“If I can not have the most brilliant destiny, I want the most wretched, not for the purpose of a sterile solitude, but in order to achieve something new with such rare matter.”

Quote by Jean Genet

Work

The thief's journal

This book offers a candid look into the life of a thief, exploring their motivations, daily routines, and the moral complexities they face. more

Author

Jean Genet
Jean Genet

Jean Genet was a French novelist known for his unique style and profound social criticism. His works often delve into the lives of marginalized individuals and their place in the social structure. Genet's life was filled with drama, having been a beggar and prisoner, experiences that deeply influenced his writing. more

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“Without realizing what she was doing and more on an impulse than anything else, she leaned forward and kissed him. It was a simple, yet firm kiss and she pulled back after only a moment. But it sent a thrill through her. He leaned down for another. But she put her finger on his lips to stop him. "That was my reward to you," she said as they danced. "Don't squander it." "Reward? he asked still seeming both surprised and delighted at this unexpected attention. "What for?" "Why for living, Vaelros. And for doing so much else to help me. I will have you rewarded in state as well. But that was just from me." She saw Vaelros flush and she gave him a brilliant smile. "You don't like my reward?" she asked. "I do!" he replied. "I want only to learn how to earn more." The music was fading. The song was ending. Luthiel stepped back and let her hands drop. "A mysterious thing, my heart," she said.”

“You are a wanderer. You have spent days and nights in loneliness. And somehow you have got addicted to your loneliness. And one day you meet someone and you feel as if you have known them all your life. It's like you both are just continuing from where you had left a long time ago. And the silences between you, too have meaning!”

“I would remind myself of how many people there were like me, & how many people fall into the despair of loneliness, every day it happens, I would say, every day someone loses his connection to the world & then becomes the noble hermit, becomes connected to himself, the snake eating its tail, & then he must look steadily toward the lonely oversoul for help, he must or he will die. And then he becomes like I am, and the oversoul grows and expands lovingly and generously, and welcomes him as a member of its secret club. All of the people in the world who are lonely or sick or very sad.”

“And there's my poor endeavoring human desk at which I sit so often during the day, facing south, the papers and pencils and the coffee cup with sprigs of alpine fir and a weird orchid of the heights wiltable in one day– My Beechnut gum, my tobacco pouch, dusts, pitiful pulp magazines I have to read, view south to all those snowy majesties– The waiting is long. On Starvation Ridge little sticks Are trying to grow.”