44 quotes
Thus, Beauty is neither an appearance nor a being, but a relationship: the transformation of being into appearance
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
The dreamer must contaminate the others by his dream, he must make them fall into it
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
Only a neutral, who is indifferent to the stake and perhaps to all stakes, can appreciate aesthetically the grandeur of a fine disaster
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
Abjection is a methodological conversion, like Cartesian doubt and Husserlian epoche: it establishes the world as a closed system which consciousness regards from without, in the manner of divine understanding.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
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.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
The consciousness of being betrayed is to the collective consciousness of a sacred group what a certain form of schizophrenia is to the individual...it is a form of madness.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
esse est percipi, and he recognizes himself as being only insofar as he is perceived.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
in order to make himself thoroughly undesirable, he will speak.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
...the reality of society involves the socialization of certain unrealities.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
...in order to change poverty into wealth, one must start by displaying it.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
...inversion...is an outlet that a child discovers when he is suffocating.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
It was a constraint; he makes of it his mission
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
But when they have realized that it [society] rejects them forever, they themselves assume the ostracism of which they are victims so as not to leave the initiative to their oppressors
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
His obedience is real since he really and truly fulfills his mission, since he runs real risks in order to carry out the beloved's orders. But, on the other hand, it is imaginary because he submits only to a creature of his mind.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
...and if you are common, you can dress up as a woman, show you behind or write poems: there's nothing offensive about a naked behind if it's everybody's; each person will be mirrored in it.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
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
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
...the impossible must be supposed in order to explain the superdetermination of the event
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
...for one cannot enter an image unless one makes oneself imaginary
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
...the prisoner's dreams is the guard's spirituality
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)
such mad confidence within despair.
Saint Genet, Actor and Martyr (1952)