The determination to outwit one's situation means that one has no models, only object lessons. James A. Baldwin More Quotes by James A. Baldwin More Quotes From James A. Baldwin 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 cities new-york mistake If the relationship of father to son could really be reduced to biology, the whole earth would blaze with the glory of fathers and sons. James A. Baldwin fathers-day earth son Yr crown has been bought and paid for. All you have to do is put it on yr head James A. Baldwin crowns has-beens paid You don’t have a home until you leave it and then, when you have left it, you never can go back. James A. Baldwin left home Society is held together by our need; we bind it together with legend, myth, coercion, fearing that without it we will be hurled into that void, within which, like the earth before the Word was spoken, the foundations of society are hidden. James A. Baldwin foundation society together It is a terrible, an inexorable, law that one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own: in the face of one's victim, one sees oneself. James A. Baldwin humanity law justice The future is like heaven-everyone exalts it but no one wants to go there now. James A. Baldwin future time memories When a man asks himself what is meant by action he proves that he isn't a man of action. Action is a lack of balance. In order to act you must be somewhat insane. A reasonably sensible man is satisfied with thinking. James A. Baldwin men order thinking What passes for identity in America is a series of myths about one's heroic ancestors. It's astounding to me, for example, that so many people really appear to believe that the country was founded by a band of heroes who wanted to be free. That happens not to be true. What happened was that some people left Europe because they couldn't stay there any longer and had to go somewhere else to make it. That's all. They were hungry, they were poor, they were convicts. Those who were making it in England, for example, did not get on the Mayflower. That's how the country was settled. James A. Baldwin hero believe country There are people in the world for whom "coming along" is a perpetual process, people who are destined never to arrive. James A. Baldwin process people world I met a lot of people in Europe. I even encountered myself. James A. Baldwin discovery europe travel Everything in life depends on how that life accepts its limits. James A. Baldwin limits acceptance life Most of us are about as eager to change as we were to be born, and go through our changes in a similar state of shock. James A. Baldwin human-nature change literature 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 - to say nothing of one's children - to live according to the world's definitions: one must find a way, perpetually, to be stronger and better than that. James A. Baldwin stronger children world I love America more than any other country in the world, and, exactly for this reason, I insist on the right to criticize her perpetually. I think all theories are suspect, that the finest principles may have to be modified, or may even be pulverized by the demands of life, and that one must find, therefore, one's own moral center and move through the world hoping that this center will guide one aright. James A. Baldwin country moving thinking Somebody," said Jacques, "your father or mine, should have told us that not many people have ever died of love. But multitudes have perished, and are perishing every hour - and in the oddest places! - for the lack of it. James A. Baldwin should-have father people The responsibility of a writer is to excavate the experience of the people who produced him. James A. Baldwin responsibility writing people Societies never know it, but the war of an artist with his society is a lover's war, and he does, at his best, what lovers do, which is to reveal the beloved to himself and, with that revelation, to make freedom real. James A. Baldwin artist real war The price one pays for pursuing any profession or calling is an intimate knowledge of its ugly side. James A. Baldwin government science knowledge Everybody's journey is individual. If you fall in love with a boy, you fall in love with a boy. The fact that many Americans consider it a disease says more about them than it does about homosexuality. James A. Baldwin falling-in-love gay boys
