Do I really want to be integrated into a burning house?
JAMES BALDWINTrust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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People are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.
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Most of us, no matter what we say, are walking in the dark, whistling in the dark.
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People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the bread they have cast on the waters comes floating back to them, poisoned.
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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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The world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.
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Those kids aren’t dumb. But the people who run these schools want to make sure they don’t get smart: they are really teaching the kids to be slaves.
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Literature is indispensable to the world.
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I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.
JAMES BALDWIN -
You write in order to change the world, if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way people look at reality, then you can change it.
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The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.
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We all commit our crimes. The thing is to not lie about them.
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People can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents.
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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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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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The world changes according to the way people see it, and if you alter, even by a millimeter, the way a person looks at reality, then you can change it.
JAMES BALDWIN