The role of the artist is exactly the same as the role of the lover. If I love you, I have to make you conscious of the things you don’t see.
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.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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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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Guilt is a luxury that we can no longer afford.
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I can’t believe what you say, because I see what you do.
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Hatred, which could destroy so much, never failed to destroy the man who hated, and this was an immutable law.
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You don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.
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There is a fearful splendor in absolute desolation.
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The paradox of education is precisely this – that as one begins to become conscious one begins to examine the society in which he is being educated.
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We all commit our crimes. The thing is to not lie about them.
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No man is a devil in his own mind.
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To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
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Our crown has already been bought and paid for. All we have to do is wear it.
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True rebels after all, are as rare as true lovers,and in both cases, to mistake a fever for passion can destroy one’s life.
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Trust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.
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When you’re writing you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know.
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Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
JAMES BALDWIN