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There are people in the world for whom “coming along” is a perpetual process, people who are destined never to arrive.

James Baldwin

I 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 BALDWIN

Deal Fear Hate Imagination Pain People Reason
The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
JAMES BALDWIN

Intimate Knowledge Pay Price Profession Pursue Ugly
It was books that taught me that the things that tormented me most were the very things that connected me with all the people who were alive, or who had ever been alive.
JAMES BALDWIN

Alive Connect People Teaching
People don’t have any mercy. They tear you limb from limb, in the name of love.
JAMES BALDWIN

Disappointment Hurt Limb Love Mercy People
I often wonder what I’d do if there weren’t any books in the world.
JAMES BALDWIN

Book One Liner Wonder World
It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.
JAMES BALDWIN

Enemy Ferocious Ignorance Justice Power
Any real change implies the breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one an identity, the end of safety.
JAMES BALDWIN

Breakup World Change Identity Real Safety
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.
JAMES BALDWIN

Change People Reality World Writing
Colour is not a human or a personal reality; it is a political reality.
JAMES BALDWIN

Black Lives Matter Colour Human One Liner Politics Reality
You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don’t live the only life you have, you won’t live some other life, you won’t live any life at all.
JAMES BALDWIN

Beat Blood Inspirational Life Live Positive
People can cry much easier than they can change.
JAMES BALDWIN

Change Cry Funny Human Nature One Liner People
To be a Negro in this country and to be relatively conscious is to be in a rage almost all the time.
JAMES BALDWIN

Consicious Country Negro Reative Time
You think your pain and your heartbreak are unprecedented in the history of the world, but then you read.
JAMES BALDWIN

Broken Heart Heart History Pain Read Thinking World
American history is longer, larger, more various, more beautiful, and more terrible than anything anyone has ever said about it.
JAMES BALDWIN

Beautiful History Terrible
All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.
JAMES BALDWIN

Hear Listen Music One Liner People
The victim who is able to articulate the situation of the victim has ceased to be a victim: he or she has become a threat.
JAMES BALDWIN

Situation Threat Victim Women

There are people in the world for whom “coming along” is a perpetual process, people who are destined never to arrive.

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There are people in the world for whom “coming along” is a perpetual process, people who are destined never to arrive.

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Popular Authors

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