Drive to the heart of every answer and expose the question the answer hides.
JAMES A. BALDWINDrive to the heart of every answer and expose the question the answer hides.
JAMES A. BALDWINThere are few things more dreadful than dealing with a man who knows he is going under, in his own eyes, and in the eyes of others. Nothing can help that man. What is left of that man flees from what is left of human attention.
JAMES A. BALDWINI met a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself.
JAMES A. BALDWINIt is very nearly impossible… to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.
JAMES A. BALDWINYou 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. BALDWINIf the word ‘integration’ means anything, this is what it means that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are, to cease fleeing from reality and begin to change it.
JAMES A. BALDWIN… every human being is an unprecedented miracle.
JAMES A. BALDWINI must oppose any attempt that Negroes may make to do to others what has been done to them. . . . I know the spiritual wasteland to which that road leads . . . whoever debases others is debasing himself.
JAMES A. BALDWINA man’s balance depends on the weight he carries between his legs.
JAMES A. BALDWINBe careful what you set your heart upon – for it will surely be yours.
JAMES A. BALDWINI am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.
JAMES A. BALDWINThe writer’s only real task: to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art
JAMES A. BALDWINLife is more important than art; that’s what makes art important.
JAMES A. BALDWINArtists are here to disturb the peace.
JAMES A. BALDWINYou think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.
JAMES A. BALDWINThe world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.
JAMES A. BALDWIN