Jean Genet

"I recognize in thieves, traitors and murderers, in the ruthless and the cunning, a deep beauty - a sunken beauty."

"Worse than not realizing the dreams of your youth, would be to have been young and never dreamed at all."

"A great wind swept over the ghetto, carrying away shame, invisibility and four centuries of humiliation. But when the wind dropped people saw it had been only a little breeze, friendly, almost gentle."

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

"The fame of heroes owes little to the extent of their conquests and all to the success of the tributes paid to them."

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