For nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.
JAMES BALDWINFor nothing is more unbearable, once one has it, than freedom.
JAMES BALDWINEveryone wishes to be loved, but in the event, nearly no one can bear it. Everyone desires love but also finds it impossible to believe that he deserves it.
JAMES BALDWINThose kids aren’t dumb. But the people who run these schools want to make sure they don’t get smart: they are really teaching the kids to be slaves.
JAMES BALDWINPeople can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents.
JAMES BALDWINTrue rebels after all, are as rare as true lovers,and in both cases, to mistake a fever for passion can destroy one’s life.
JAMES BALDWINThe victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat.
JAMES BALDWINI want to be an honest man and a good writer.
JAMES BALDWINI am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also so much more than that. So are we all.
JAMES BALDWINIt is easy to proclaim all souls equal in the sight of God; it is hard to make men equal on earth in the sight of men.
JAMES BALDWINChildren have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
JAMES BALDWINMost of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark.
JAMES BALDWINGuilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford.
JAMES BALDWINNo man is a devil in his own mind.
JAMES BALDWINThere are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.
JAMES BALDWINIf a society permits one portion of its citizenry to be menaced or destroyed, then, very soon, no one in that society is safe.
JAMES BALDWINThere are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is to be contemptuous of other people’s pain.
JAMES BALDWIN