“But it’s not possible to forget anybody you were that hung up on, who was that hung up on you. You can’t… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“The greatest poet in the English language found his poetry where poetry is found: in the lives of the people. He could… — James Baldwin English language Copy Share Image
“Yves did not like showers, he preferred long, scalding baths, with newspapers, cigarettes, and whiskey on a chair next to the bathtub,… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“If you cannot love me, I will die. Before you came I wanted to die, I have told you many times. It… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“He was suggesting that all Negroes were held in a state of supreme tension between the difficult, dangerous relationship in which they… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“Ain't no such thing as a little fault or a big fault. Satan get his foot in the door, he ain't going… — James Baldwin Inspirational Copy Share Image
“Joyce is right about history being a nightmare—but it may be the nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped… — James Baldwin History Copy Share Image
“If dirty words frighten you...I really don’t know how you have managed to live so long. People are full of dirty words.… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“What are you doing all the time? And why do you say nothing? You are evil, you know, and sometimes when you… — James Baldwin Evil Copy Share Image
“It takes strength to remember, it takes another kind of strength to forget, it takes a hero to do both. People who… — James Baldwin Death Copy Share Image
“Life, it is true, is a process of decisions and alternatives, the conscious awareness and acceptance of limitations. Experience, nevertheless, to say… — James Baldwin Conscious awareness Copy Share Image
“Perhaps the best way to sum all this up is to say that the people I knew felt, mainly, a peculiar kind… — James Baldwin Death Copy Share Image
“The Negroes in Harlem, who have no money, spend what they have on such gimcracks as they are sold. These include “wider”… — James Baldwin Money Copy Share Image
“What the times demand, and in an unprecedented fashion, is that one be—not seem—outrageous, independent, anarchical. That one be thoroughly disciplined—as a… — James Baldwin Society Copy Share Image
“The South is very beautiful but its beauty makes one sad because the lives that people live, and have lived here, are… — James Baldwin Beauty Copy Share Image
“Americans are as unlike any other white people in the world as it is possible to be. I do not think, for… — James Baldwin Americans 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 Fear Copy Share Image
“They have never put it into words, they cannot; but each absence is a threat. They never felt this way in New… — James Baldwin Birmingham Copy Share Image
“He did not seem to know enough about the people in his novel. They did not seem to trust him. They were… — James Baldwin Books Copy Share Image
“Perhaps everybody has a garden of Eden, I don't know; but they have scarcely seen their garden before they see the flaming… — James Baldwin Garden of eden Copy Share Image
“ANY REAL CHANGE IMPLIES THE breakup of the world as one has always known it, the loss of all that gave one… — James Baldwin Change Copy Share Image
“Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us,… — James Baldwin Death Copy Share Image
“Have you been to the police?’ Richard asked. ‘Yes.’ She made a gesture of disgust and rose and walked to the window.… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“The spreading of the Gospel, regardless of the motives or the integrity or the heroism of some of the missionaries, was an… — James Baldwin Christian church Copy Share Image
“If we know, then we must fight for your life as though it were our own-which it is-and render impassable with our… — James Baldwin Activism Copy Share Image
“And his mind could not contain the terrible stretch of time that united twelve men fishing by the shores of Galilee, and… — James Baldwin Psychology Copy Share Image
“You stop that,’ he said, in a voice which he did not recognise. ‘You stop that. You stop trying to kill me.… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“It is quite impossible to write a worth-while novel about a Jew or a Gentile or a Homosexual, for people refuse, unhappily,… — James Baldwin Books Copy Share Image
“All for the first time, in the days when acts had no consequences and nothing was irrecoverable, and love was simple and… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“Not only was I not born to be a slave: I was not born to hope to become the equal of the… — James Baldwin Slave Copy Share Image
“And yet - when one begins to search for the crucial, the definitive moment, the moment which changed all others, one finds… — James Baldwin Time Copy Share Image
“The colors on the river faded, the rain began, and the river began to rise. It was apparent that the sun would… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“Perhaps now, though, he had hit bottom. One thing about the bottom, he told himself, you can't fall any further. He tried… — James Baldwin Copy Share Image
“Time: the word tolled like the bells of a church. Fonny was doing: time. In six months time, our baby would be… — James Baldwin Compassion Copy Share Image
“He stood for a moment on the melting snow, distracted, and then began to run down the hill, feeling himself fly as… — James Baldwin Melting snow Copy Share Image
“You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don't live the only life you have, you won't live some… — James Baldwin Advice Copy Share Image
If you're treated a certain way you become a certain kind of person. If certain things are described to you as being… — James Baldwin Being real Copy Share Image
“The real reason that nonviolence is considered to be a virtue in Negroes— I am not speaking now of its racial value,… — James Baldwin Nonviolence Copy Share Image
“all the fears with which I had grown up, and which were now a part of me and controlled my vision of… — James Baldwin Dreams Copy Share Image
“I am very much concerned that American Negroes achieve their freedom here in the United States. But I am also concerned for… — James Baldwin America Copy Share Image
