Hatred destroys the person who hates.
JAMES A. BALDWINThe responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him.
More James A. Baldwin Quotes
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You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you.
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There is no way of conveying to the corpse the reasons you have made him one–you have the corpse, and you are, thereafter, at themercy of a fact which missed the truth, which means that the corpse has you.
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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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I think Americans are terrified of feeling anything. I never met a people more infantile in my life.
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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.
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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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The purpose of education…is to create in a person the ability to look at the world for himself, to make his own decisions.
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The real victim of bigotry is the white man who hides his weakness under his myth of superiority.
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There is a ‘sanctity’ involved with bringing a child into this world: it is better than bombing one out of it.
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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.
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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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Drive to the heart of every answer and expose the question the answer hides.
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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.
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The writer’s greed is appalling. He wants, or seems to want, everything and practically everybody, in another sense, and at the same time, he needs no one at all.
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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