Caleb

“And messieurs, mesdames, mesdemoiselles, you must not presume that it is enough for you to condescend to the criminal child, lavishing your attention, your concern, your indulgence upon him in the belief that he will respond with affection and gratitude: for that you will have to be the child and you will have to be the crime as well, hallowing it through a magnificent life, through daring to liberate yourself from worldly powers. Since we are divided—since some of us have shown such desire and daring—divided between the not-guilty (I won’t say innocent), between you, the not-guilty, and us, the guilty, remember that all your life you’ve lived on one side where you presume yourselves at no risk whatsoever, where you can even feel Good, extend a hand to shake. I’ve made my own decision, however: I’m on the side of crime. And I’ll help these children, not to return to your houses, your factories, your schools, your laws, and your sacraments, but to steal them all.”
― Jean Genet, The Criminal Child and Other Essays

“Suffering is not discerned,
neither has love been learned,
and what removes us in death,
nothing unveils.
Only the song's high breath
hallows and hails.”
― Rainer Maria Rilke, Sonnets to Orpheus

“And I note here the little beat my heart once missed, in my home, when a fly, flying low above my ash-tray, raised a little ash, with the breath of its wings. And I grew gradually weaker and weaker and more and more content.”
― Samuel Beckett, Molloy

“Evil lies in the fact that passion has grown servile, has placed itself in the service of a legal power that can only exert itself coldly. Pure passion is naturally in revolt and never wants legal power: generally, it does not even have power as its end but ruin, excessive expenditure rapidly destroying power.”
― Georges Bataille, Critical Essays, Volume 1: 1944–1948