“Yet, what is their violence compared to mine, which was to accept theirs, to make it mine, to wish it for myself, to intercept it, to utilize it, to force it upon myself, to know it, to premeditate it, to discern and assume its perils? But what was mine, willed and necessary for my defense, my toughness, my rigor, compared to the violence they underwent like a malediction, risen from an inner fire simultaneously with an outer light which sets them ablaze and illuminates us?”

—  Jean Genet, book The Thief's Journal

The Thief's Journal (1949)

Adopted from Wikiquote. Last update June 3, 2021. History

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Jean Genet32
French novelist, playwright, poet and political activist 1910–1986

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