The world is before you, and you need not take it or leave it as it was when you came in.
JAMES BALDWINThe purpose of art is to lay bare the questions that have been hidden by the answers.
More James Baldwin Quotes
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Artists are here to disturb the peace.
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The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side.
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The world is mostly divided between madmen who remember and madmen who forget. Heroes are rare.
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The artistic image is not intended to represent the thing itself, but, rather, the reality of the force the thing contains.
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People are trapped in history and history is trapped in them.
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If you’re treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person.
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I often wonder what I’d do if there weren’t any books in the world.
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Whoever debases others is debasing himself.
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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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Everyone wishes to be loved, but in the event, nearly no one can bear it. Everyone desires love but also finds it impossible to believe that he deserves it.
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When you’re writing you’re trying to find out something which you don’t know.
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History is not a procession of illustrious people. It’s about what happens to a people. Millions of anonymous people is what history is about.
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Confusion is a luxury which only the very, very young can possibly afford and you are not that young anymore.
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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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Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.
JAMES BALDWIN