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Life is more important than art; that’s what makes art important.

James A. Baldwin

It is impossible to pretend that you are not heir to, and therefore, however inadequately or unwillingly, responsible to, and for, the time and place that give you life — without becoming, at very best, a dangerously disoriented human being.
JAMES A. BALDWIN

Becoming Giving Heirs
If you think too far ahead, if you even try to think too far ahead, you’ll never make it.
JAMES A. BALDWIN

Life Thinking Trying
Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always seem untimely.
JAMES A. BALDWIN

Case Death Institution
The writer’s only real task: to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art
JAMES A. BALDWIN

Art Order Real
You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.
JAMES A. BALDWIN

Force Idea World
When the South has trouble with its Negroes – when the Negroes refuse to remain in their “place” – it blames “outside agitators” and “Northern interference.” When the nation has trouble with the Northern Negro, it blames the Kremlin.
JAMES A. BALDWIN

Blame Refuse Trouble
At four o’clock in the morning, when everyone is drunk enough, then extraordinary things can happen.
JAMES A. BALDWIN

Drunk Morning Wine
A devotion to humanity is… too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause, and Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.
JAMES A. BALDWIN

Atheism Causes Humanity
You think your pains and heartbreaks are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read. [and then you discover that others have suffered much more than you and your problems look good in comparison]
JAMES A. BALDWIN

Gratitude Pain Thinking
One writes out of one thing only – one’s own experience.
JAMES A. BALDWIN

One Thing Writing
If the concept of God has any validity or any use, it can only be to make us larger, freer, and more loving. If God cannot do this, then it is time we got rid of Him.
JAMES A. BALDWIN

Religious Use Validity
Remember, to hate, to be violent, is demeaning. It means you’re afraid of the other side of the coin — to love and be loved.
JAMES A. BALDWIN

Coins Hate Mean
There is never time in the future in which we will work out our salvation. The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.
JAMES A. BALDWIN

Blessing Future Time
Be careful what you set your heart upon – for it will surely be yours.
JAMES A. BALDWIN

Broken Heart Inspirational Success
It is a terrible, an inexorable, law that one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one’s own: in the face of one’s victim, one sees oneself.
JAMES A. BALDWIN

Humanity Justice Law
You don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.
JAMES A. BALDWIN

Emotion Home Leave Left Universe

Life is more important than art; that’s what makes art important.

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Life is more important than art; that’s what makes art important.

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