Writer Quotes by James A. Baldwin

8 Writer quotes by James A. Baldwin

All Writer quotes James A. Baldwin’s page

James Baldwin’s reflections on writing are as incisive as his prose. In this brief collection you’ll find eight statements that reveal his view of the writer as a social commentator and a moral compass, perfect for a quick, thoughtful read.

Rate this collection: ★ ★ ★ ★ ★ No ratings yet

Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must…

James A. Baldwin

Image

God be thanked for books! They are the voices of the distant and the dead.

James A. Baldwin

Image

The writer's greed is appalling. He wants, or seems to want, everything and practically everybody, in another sense, and at the same…

James A. Baldwin

Image

A real writer is always shifting and changing and searching.

James A. Baldwin

Image

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

James A. Baldwin

Image

Unless a writer is extremely old when he dies, in which case he has probably become a neglected institution, his death must…

James A. Baldwin

Image

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

Image

A writer has to take all the risks of putting down what he sees.

James A. Baldwin

Image

Other authors on Writer

More by James A. Baldwin

One cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own.

James A. Baldwin

Image

All I know about music is that not many people ever really hear it.

James A. Baldwin

Image

I've always believed that you can think positive just as well as you can think negative.

James A. Baldwin

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

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

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

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

Image

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

James A. Baldwin

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

Image

I think Americans are terrified of feeling anything. I never met a people more infantile in my life.

James A. Baldwin

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

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

Image

White people will have quite enough to do in learning how to accept and love themselves and each other, and when they have achieved…

James A. Baldwin

Image

A devotion to humanity is... too easily equated with a devotion to a Cause, and Causes, as we know, are notoriously bloodthirsty.

James A. Baldwin

Image

Most people... find a disorientating mismatch between the long-term nature of their liabilities and the increasingly short-term nature of their assets.

James A. Baldwin

Image