You have to decide who you are and force the world to deal with you, not with its idea of you. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
Whoever is born in New York is ill-equipped to deal with any other city: all other cities seem, at best, a mistake, and, at worst, a fraud. No other city is so spitefully incoherent. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
One cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
The white man discovered the Cross by way of the Bible, but the black man discovered the Bible by way of the Cross. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
The American ideal of sexuality appears to be rooted in the American ideal of masculinity. This idea has created cowboys and Indians, good guys… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
Voyagers discover that the world can never be larger than the person that is in the world; but it is impossible to foresee this,… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
We take our shape, it is true, within and against that cage of reality bequeathed us at our birth; and yet it is precisely… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
The American ideal is, after all, that everyone should be as much alike as possible. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
James Joyce is right about history being a nightmare-- but it may be that nightmare from which no one can awaken. People are trapped… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
I think Americans are terrified of feeling anything. I never met a people more infantile in my life. — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must always be… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
An identity is questioned only when it is menaced, as when the mighty begin to fall, or when the wretched begin to rise, or… — James A. Baldwin Copy Share Image
