All James A. Baldwin Quotes
- Even the most incorrigible maverick has to be born somewhere. He may leave the group that produced him-he may be forced to-but nothing will efface… Acceptance
- You cannot fix what you will not face. Cannot Fix
- Great art can only be created out of love. Art
- If you're afraid to die, you will not be able to live. Able
- The hope of the world lies in what one demands, not of others, but of oneself. Demand
- You want to write a sentence as clean as a bone. That is the goal. Bone
- All racists are irresponsible. All
- One can only face in others what one can face in oneself. Face
- 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,… All
- I remember standing on a street corner with the black painter Beauford Delaney down in the Village, waiting for the light to change, and he… All
- A liberal: someone who thinks he knows more about your experience than you do. Experience
- One day, to everyone’s astonishment, someone drops a match in the powder keg and everything blows up. Astonishment
- A society must assume that it is stable, but the artist must know, and he must let us know, that there is nothing stable under… Artist
- If the word integration means anything, this is what it means that we, with love, shall force our brothers to see themselves as they are,… Begin
- The world tends to trap you in the role you play and it is always extremely hard to maintain a watchful, mocking distance between oneself… Always Extremely
- When the book comes out it may hurt you - but in order for me to do it, it had to hurt me first. I… Book
- To ask questions of the universe, and then learn to live with those questions, is the way he achieves his own identity. Achieve
- A writer has to take all the risks of putting down what he sees. All
- The interior life is a real life, and the intangible dreams of people have a tangible effect on the world. Dream
- Ask any Mexican, any Puerto Rican, any black man, any poor person - ask the wretched how they fare in the halls of justice, and… Allied
- Sentimentality , the ostentatious parading of excessive and spurious emotion, is the mark of dishonesty, the inability to feel. Dishonesty
- Drive to the heart of every answer and expose the question the answer hides. Answer
- I conceive of God, in fact, as a means of liberation and not a means to control others. Conceive
- We can make America what America must become. America
- The world's definitions are one thing and the life one actually lives is quite another. One cannot allow oneself, nor one's family, friends, or lovers… According