I often wonder what I’d do if there weren’t any books in the world.
JAMES BALDWINI often wonder what I’d do if there weren’t any books in the world.
JAMES BALDWINIf you cannot love me, I will die. Before you came I wanted to die, I have told you many times. It is cruel to have made me want to live only to make my death more bloody
JAMES BALDWINTrust life, and it will teach you, in joy and sorrow, all you need to know.
JAMES BALDWINThe impossible is the least that one can demand.
JAMES BALDWINHatred is always self hatred, and there is something suicidal about it.
JAMES BALDWINChildren have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.
JAMES BALDWINYou don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back.
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 BALDWINThere are too many things we do not wish to know about ourselves.
JAMES BALDWINNobody is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart; for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
JAMES BALDWINPeople are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.
JAMES BALDWINThere are few things under heaven more unnerving than the silent, accumulating contempt and hatred of a people.
JAMES BALDWINNeither love nor terror makes one blind: indifference makes one blind.
JAMES BALDWINPeople are too various to be treated so lightly. I am too various to be trusted.
JAMES BALDWINThose who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.
JAMES BALDWINNo one is more dangerous than he who imagines himself pure in heart: for his purity, by definition, is unassailable.
JAMES BALDWIN