“In order to change a situation one has first to see it for what it is.” — James Baldwin Change Copy Share Image
“We've got to be as clear-headed about human beings as possible, because we are still each other's only hope.” — James Baldwin Hope Copy Share Image
“For the rebirth of the soul was perpetual; only rebirth every hour could stay the hand of Satan.” — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“Take no one’s word for anything, including mine - but trust your experience.” — James Baldwin Experience Copy Share Image
“You can't see yourself all over. But I can. Part of you is honey, part of you is copper, some of you… — James Baldwin Copper Copy Share Image
Not everything that we face can be changed but nothing can be changed until it's faced. — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“One must say Yes to life and embrace it wherever it is found—and it is found in terrible places; nevertheless, there it… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“You face reality, not the lights. The lights go off as quickly as they come on.” — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“There is nothing more boring, anyway, than sexual activity as an end in itself, and a great many people who came out… — James Baldwin Great man Copy Share Image
“she was disquietingly fluid—fluid without, however, being able to flow. I felt a hardness and a constriction in her, a grave mistrust,… — James Baldwin Heart Copy Share Image
“I scarcely know how to describe that room. It became, in a way, every room I had ever been in and every… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“In the context of the Negro problem neither whites nor blacks, for excellent reasons of their own, have the faintest desire to… — James Baldwin African americans Copy Share Image
“Elisha,' he said, 'no matter what happens to me, where I go, what folks say about me, no matter what anybody says,… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“I did not know, however, that ancient glories imply, at least in the middle of the present century, present fatigue and, quite… — James Baldwin Ancient Copy Share Image
“On the contrary, we have a very deep-seated distrust of real intellectual effort (probably because we suspect that it will destroy, as… — James Baldwin Distrust Copy Share Image
“Don’t you see how unjust it was to wait for me to find it out? To put all the burden on me?… — James Baldwin Feminism Copy Share Image
“The man does not remember the hand that struck him, the darkness that frightened him, as a child; nevertheless, the hand and… — James Baldwin Children Copy Share Image
“There are so many ways of being despicable it quite makes one’s head spin. But the way to be really despicable is… — James Baldwin Contempt Copy Share Image
“I can conceive of no Negro native to this country who has not, by the age of puberty, been irreparably scarred by… — James Baldwin Harlem Copy Share Image
“We spend vast amounts of our time an emotional energy in learning how not to be natural and in eluding the trap… — James Baldwin Emotional energy Copy Share Image
“The person who distrusts himself has no touchstone for reality - for this touchstone can be only oneself. Such a person interpose… — James Baldwin Culture 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
“In the Negro world, as in the white world, Negroes who have money band together and try to ignore the existence of… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“White Americans find it as difficult as white people elsewhere do to divest themselves of the notion that they are in possession… — James Baldwin Black people Copy Share Image
“The situation, therefore, in the colonial countries, is tragic,” Cesaire continued. “Wherever colonization is a fact the indigenous culture begins to rot.… — James Baldwin Culture Copy Share Image
“The morning of that day, as Gabriel rose and started out to work, the sky was low and nearly black and the… — James Baldwin Rain Copy Share Image
“Giovanni had awakened an itch, had released a gnaw in me. I realized it one afternoon, when I was taking him to… — James Baldwin Affection Copy Share Image
“Yet, if the American Negro has arrived at his identity by virtue of the absoluteness of his estrangement from his past, American… — James Baldwin African americans Copy Share Image
“Some escaped the trap, most didn't. Those who got out always left something of themselves behind, as some animals amputate a leg… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“She knows Daddy better than I do. I think it's because she's felt since we were children that our Daddy maybe loved… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“In my experience - and this is a very awkward way to put it, since I don't really know what the word… — James Baldwin Experience Copy Share Image
“I may be drunk by morning but that will not do any good. I shall take the train to Paris anyway. The… — James Baldwin Depression Copy Share Image
“For I am—or I was—one of those people who pride themselves in on their willpower, on their ability to make a decision… — James Baldwin Character Copy Share Image
“In the United States, violence and heroism have been made synonymous except when it comes to blacks, and” — James Baldwin Heroism Copy Share Image
“all men were like this, their thoughts rose no higher, and they lived only to gratify on the bodies of women their… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
