People who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.
JAMES BALDWINPeople who believe that they are strong-willed and the masters of their destiny can only continue to believe this by becoming specialists in self-deception.
JAMES BALDWINThere are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.
JAMES BALDWINConfusion is a luxury which only the very, very young can possibly afford and you are not that young anymore.
JAMES BALDWINI want to be an honest man and a good writer.
JAMES BALDWINThose who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.
JAMES BALDWINThe impossible is the least that one can demand.
JAMES BALDWINIt’s a miracle to realize that somebody loves you.
JAMES BALDWINPeople can’t, unhappily, invent their mooring posts, their lovers and their friends, anymore than they can invent their parents.
JAMES BALDWINPrecisely at the point when you begin to develop a conscience you must find yourself at war with your society.
JAMES BALDWINPerhaps he is a fool or a coward but almost everybody is one or the other and most people are both.
JAMES BALDWINNo one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
JAMES BALDWINLife is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time.
JAMES BALDWINLiterature is indispensable to the world.
JAMES BALDWINI imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.
JAMES BALDWINEducation is indoctrination if you’re white – subjugation if you’re black.
JAMES BALDWINYou don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.
JAMES BALDWIN