Quotes from Prisoner of Love

“Anyone who hasn't experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing of ecstasy at all.”
― Jean Genet, quote from Prisoner of Love

“The hour between dog and wolf, that is, dusk, when the two can’t be distinguished from each other, suggests a lot of other things besides the time of day…The hour in which…every being becomes his own shadow, and thus something other than himself. The hour of metamorphoses, when people half hope, half fear that a dog will become a wolf. The hour that comes down to us from at least as far back as the early Middle Ages, when country people believed that transformation might happen at any moment.”
― Jean Genet, quote from Prisoner of Love

“إن العالم العربي، الذي ترونه من باريس، لم يبق منذ عهد محمد علي في مصر محنيا ولا جامدا. لقد انتفض محمد علي ضد الامبراطورية العثمانية والانجليز، تلته انتفاضة دروز سوريا في 1925، التي سحقها جنرالكم غورو، فحرب الجزائر، فالأنتفاضة المغربية وانتفاضة التونسيين التي أجلت كلأ من الفرنسيين والطليان الذين كانوا يتقاسمون خارطة الأمطار الشهيرة، فنهوض الجنرال قاسم بوجه الإنجليز في وشركة نفط العراق في 1958، ولم يدع عبد الناصر ولا حتى القذافي المملكة السنوسية سالمة. إن عالمنا كله انتفض ليتخلص من قمله، لكن لا رحب ولا فعل كان لهما مدى الثورة الفلسطينية”
― Jean Genet, quote from Prisoner of Love

“Anyone who has not experienced the ecstasy of betrayal knows nothing about ecstasy at all.”
― Jean Genet, quote from Prisoner of Love

“We are the ink that gives the white page a meaning.”
― Jean Genet, quote from Prisoner of Love

“When a man invents an image that he wants to propagate, that he may even want to substitute for himself, he starts by experimenting, making mistakes, sketching out freaks and other non-viable monsters that he has to tear up unless they disintegrate of their own accord. But the operative image is the one that's left after the person dies or withdraws from the world, as in the case of Socrates, Christ, Saladin, Saint-Just and so on. They succeeded in projecting an image around themselves and into the future. It doesn't matter whether or not the image corresponds to what they were really like: they managed to wrest a powerful image from that reality.”
― Jean Genet, quote from Prisoner of Love

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“Kat.” He uttered my name like it was some kind of prayer, and then he pressed a kiss against the skin behind my ear. “I broke every rule of my kind to heal you and keep you with me. I … burned down an entire city to keep you safe. I’ve killed for you. Did you think I’d forget what you mean to me? That anything in this world— in any world— would be stronger than my love for you?”
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“You do not,’ cried Giovanni, sitting up, ‘love anyone! You never have loved anyone, I am sure you never will! You love your purity, you love your mirror—you are just like a little virgin, you walk around with your hands in front of you as though you had some precious metal, gold, silver, rubies, maybe diamonds down there between your legs! You will never give it to anybody, you will never let anybody touch it—man or woman. You want to be clean. You think you came here covered with soap and you think you will go out covered with soap—and you do not want to stink, not even for five minutes, in the meantime.’ He grasped me by the collar, wrestling and caressing at once, fluid and iron at once: saliva spraying from his lips and his eyes full of tears, but with the bones of his face showing and the muscles leaping in his arms and neck. ‘You want to leave Giovanni because he makes you stink. You want to despise Giovanni because he is not afraid of the stink of love. You want to kill him in the name of all your lying little moralities. And you—you are immoral. You are, by far, the most immoral man I have met in all my life. Look, look what you have done to me. Do you think you could have done this if I did not love you? Is this what you should do to love?”
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BookQuoters is a community of passionate readers who enjoy sharing the most meaningful, memorable and interesting quotes from great books. As the world communicates more and more via texts, memes and sound bytes, short but profound quotes from books have become more relevant and important. For some of us a quote becomes a mantra, a goal or a philosophy by which we live. For all of us, quotes are a great way to remember a book and to carry with us the author’s best ideas.

We thoughtfully gather quotes from our favorite books, both classic and current, and choose the ones that are most thought-provoking. Each quote represents a book that is interesting, well written and has potential to enhance the reader’s life. We also accept submissions from our visitors and will select the quotes we feel are most appealing to the BookQuoters community.

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