James A. Baldwin

I will no longer take anyone's word for my experience.

— James A. Baldwin

A ghetto can be improved in one way only: out of existence.

— James A. Baldwin

I am aware that no man is a villain in his own eyes.

— James A. Baldwin

All racists are irresponsible.

— James A. Baldwin

Writing is a political instrument.

— James A. Baldwin

One can only face in others what one can face in oneself.

— James A. Baldwin

The challenge is in the moment; the time is always now.

— James A. Baldwin

You cannot fix what you will not face.

— James A. Baldwin

One day, to everyone’s astonishment, someone drops a match in the powder keg and everything blows up.

— James A. Baldwin

Recognizing a problem doesn't always bring a solution, but until we recognize that problem, there can be no solution.

— James A. Baldwin

There is a 'sanctity' involved with bringing a child into this world: it is better than bombing one out of it.

— James A. Baldwin

A liberal: someone who thinks he knows more about your experience than you do.

— James A. Baldwin

To defend oneself against a fear is simply to insure that one will, one day, be conquered by it; fears must be…

— James A. Baldwin

It is astonishing that in a country so devoted to the individual, so many people should be afraid to speak.

— James A. Baldwin

All of Africa will be free before we can get a lousy cup of coffee.

— James A. Baldwin

It is certain, in any case, that ignorance, allied with power, is the most ferocious enemy justice can have.

— James A. Baldwin

The betrayal of a belief is not the same thing as ceasing to believe. If this were not so there would be…

— James A. Baldwin

Our dehumanization of the Negro then is indivisible from our dehumanization of ourselves; the loss of our own identity is the price…

— James A. Baldwin

I think white gay people feel cheated because they were born, in principle, in a society in which they were supposed to…

— James A. Baldwin

Europe has what we [Americans] do not have yet, a sense of the mysterious and inexorable limits of life, a sense, in…

— James A. Baldwin

I started reading. I read everything I could get my hands on...By the time I was thirteen I had read myself out…

— James A. Baldwin

When the book comes out it may hurt you - but in order for me to do it, it had to hurt…

— James A. Baldwin

Remember, to hate, to be violent, is demeaning. It means you're afraid of the other side of the coin -- to love…

— James A. Baldwin

An identity is questioned only when it is menaced, as when the mighty begin to fall, or when the wretched begin to…

— James A. Baldwin

The miracle is that some have stepped out of the rags of the Republic's definition to assume the great burden and glory…

— James A. Baldwin

Any honest examination of the national life proves how far we are from the standard of human freedom with which we began.…

— James A. Baldwin

There exists among the intolerable degraded, the perverse and powerful desire to force into the arena of the actual those fantastic crimes…

— James A. Baldwin

You go into a book and you're in the dark, really. You go in with a certain fear and trembling. You know…

— James A. Baldwin

I think that the inability to love is the central problem, because that inability masks a certain terror, and that terror is…

— James A. Baldwin

We cannot discuss the state of our minorities until we first have some sense of what we are, who we are, what…

— James A. Baldwin

I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to…

— James A. Baldwin

Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person - ask the wretched how they fare in the halls…

— James A. Baldwin

... every human being is an unprecedented miracle.

— James A. Baldwin

One writes out of one thing only-one's own experience,

— James A. Baldwin

Everything depends on how relentlessly one forces from experience the last drop, sweet or bitter, it can possibly give.

— James A. Baldwin

You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal.

— James A. Baldwin

The trick is to love somebody… If you love one person, you see everybody else differently.

— James A. Baldwin

The interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world.

— James A. Baldwin

In order to have a conversation with someone you must reveal yourself.

— James A. Baldwin

The American ideal is, after all, that everyone should be as much alike as possible.

— James A. Baldwin