I am what time, circumstance, history, have made of me, certainly, but I am also, much more than that. So are we all.
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. BALDWINYou want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal.
JAMES A. BALDWINFor these are all our children, we will all profit by or pay for whatthey become.
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. BALDWINA child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.
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. BALDWINAt bottom, to be colored means that one has been caught in some utterly unbelievable cosmic joke, a joke so hideous and in such bad taste that it defeats all categories and definitions.
JAMES A. BALDWINRemember, 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. BALDWINBe careful what you set your heart upon – for it will surely be yours.
JAMES A. BALDWINIt is very nearly impossible… to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.
JAMES A. BALDWINYou have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.
JAMES A. BALDWINI think Americans are terrified of feeling anything. I never met a people more infantile in my life.
JAMES A. BALDWINYou write in order to change the world.
JAMES A. BALDWINThe wretched of the earth do not decide to become extinct, they resolve, on the contrary, to multiply: life is their weapon against life, life is all that they have.
JAMES A. BALDWINAt four o’clock in the morning, when everyone is drunk enough, then extraordinary things can happen.
JAMES A. BALDWINThe responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.
JAMES A. BALDWIN