“In those days my mother was given to the exasperating and mysterious habit of having babies.” — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“And then, again, I was undergoing with my father what the very young inevitability undergo with their elders: I was beginning to… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“And her mother still struggled in these white kitchens in town, humming sweet hymns, tiny, mild eyed and bent, her father still… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“John’s heart was hardened against the Lord. His father was God’s minister, the ambassador of the King of Heaven, and John could… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“Elijah Muhammad himself has now been carrrying the same message for more than thirty years; he is not an overnight sensation, and… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“The woman on the bed was old, her life was fading as the mist rose. She thought of her mother as already… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“The fear that I heard in my father’s voice, for example, when he realized that I really believed I could do anything… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“I suppose this is why I asked her to marry me: to give me something to be moored to. Perhaps this was… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“He must be “good” not only in order to please his parents and not only to avoid being punished by them; behind… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“This was the last time I ever saw my mother alive. Just the same, this picture gets all mixed up in my… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“In any case, white people, who had robbed black people of their liberty and who profited by this theft every hour that they lived,… — James Baldwin Copy Share
“The South is very beautiful but its beauty makes one sad because the lives that people live, and have lived here, are so ugly… — James Baldwin Copy Share
“All cultures have, furthermore, an economic, social, and political base, and no culture can continue to live if its political destiny is not in… — James Baldwin Copy Share
“I remembered that life in that room seemed to be occuring beneath the sea, time flowed past indiffrently above us, hours and days had… — James Baldwin Copy Share
“No. It would help if I were able to feel guilty.But the end of innocence is also the end of guilt” — James Baldwin Copy Share
“Perhaps now, though, he had hit bottom. One thing about the bottom, he told himself, you can't fall any further. He tried to take… — James Baldwin Copy Share
“What kind of friendship have you had? Or for that matter...what kind of love affairs?” — James Baldwin Copy Share
“For these are all our children, we will all profit by or pay for what they become.” — James Baldwin Copy Share
“Every society is really governed by hidden laws, by unspoken but profound assumptions on the part of the people, and ours is no exception.” — James Baldwin Copy Share
“In those days my mother was given to the exasperating and mysterious habit of having babies.” — James Baldwin Copy Share
“He was suggesting that all Negroes were held in a state of supreme tension between the difficult, dangerous relationship in which they stood to… — James Baldwin Copy Share
“In the beginning—and neither can this be overstated—a Negro just cannot believe that white people are treating him as they do; he does not… — James Baldwin Copy Share
“If the world wasn't so full of dead folks maybe those of us that's trying to live wouldn't have to suffer so bad.” — James Baldwin Copy Share
“I am very much concerned that American Negroes achieve their freedom here in the United States. But I am also concerned for their dignity,… — James Baldwin Copy Share
“The paradox—and a fearful paradox it is—is that the American Negro can have no future anywhere, on any continent, as long as he is… — James Baldwin Copy Share
