One writes out of one thing only – one’s own experience.
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.
More James A. Baldwin Quotes
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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.
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A child cannot be taught by anyone who despises him, and a child cannot afford to be fooled.
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I met a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself.
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The writer’s only real task: to recreate out of the disorder of life that order which is art
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I 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.
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… every human being is an unprecedented miracle.
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If you think too far ahead, if you even try to think too far ahead, you’ll never make it.
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Artists are here to disturb the peace.
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Life is more important than art; that’s what makes art important.
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It is very nearly impossible… to become an educated person in a country so distrustful of the independent mind.
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You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal.
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You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.
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A man’s balance depends on the weight he carries between his legs.
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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.
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If we do not now dare everything, the fulfillment of that prophecy, re-created from the Bible in song by a slave, is upon us: God gave Noah the rainbow sign. No more water, fire next time.
JAMES A. BALDWIN