Painting
of Genet by Giacometti
Only children who want to be bandits in order to resemble the bandit they love--or to be that bandit--dare have the audacity to play their character to the very end...We were savage children who went far more deeply into cruelty than our idols, the bold gangsters. But though I have lost the ability to steal the bruisers' adornments, do not be surprised that, at the beginning of my stay in the hole, I unwittingly gave myself a bruiser's build when I drew a pencil sketch of myself on a paper bag for Bulkaen. I drew myself with the muscles I knew I had, and I knew I was strong. It will take Bulkaen's death and the knowledge of his treachery to deflate me.
--from The Miracle of the Rose